Who gets hired and onto which teams
Apex Space is scaling production from 12 to roughly 80 satellites a month out of its Los Angeles factory, and it recruits engineers who can make that tempo hold, offering base salaries of $100k–$215k with a $170k median across 72 salaried roles, then filtering candidates through a six-stage interview process built on practical assessments. The company bets the next era of spacecraft manufacturing belongs to engineers who can turn the custom-shop model inside out: same chassis, configurable options, rolling off a line at volume.
Graham Mullings, VP of Engineering, oversees six core teams mapped to the productized bus. Avionics leads with 15 engineers; Manufacturing Engineering runs 10 deep; Software, Mission Management, Quality Assurance, and Spacecraft Engineering each hold nine seats. GNC specialists, structures analysts, thermal leads, and mission operators work in parallel across the three bus lines: Aries, Nova, Comet.
Vehicle Directors own the integration thread. Joseph Aubuchon leads the GEO Aries vehicle; Jaya Iyer serves as Aries Vehicle Lead; a Comet Vehicle Director role sits open at $220k–$280k, Zero G Talent found. Individual contributors carry familiar titles with a production twist: Lead Mechanical and Thermal Engineer Charles Phillips, Structures Engineer Michael Tanzini, Mechanical Engineer Olivia Ernst, Software Engineer Brian Ho. The Principal Spacecraft GNC Engineer band ($200k–$260k), according to Zero G Talent's board, and Spacecraft Dynamics Engineer band ($136k–$220k), Zero G Talent's board shows, show the seniority Apex targets for guidance, navigation, and control.
Vertical integration pulls supply chain into engineering. Chris Froschauer, VP of Supply Chain, and Alex Verrelli, VP of Production, sit alongside Mullings on the org chart. The Phase Four Hall-effect thruster acquisition brought propulsion hardware and people in-house; more component teams will follow. The VP of Supply Chain posting at $250k–$300k, Zero G Talent's figures put, reflects a technical leadership seat.
Nirav Mehta, VP of Mission Services, runs a nine-person Mission Management team handling customer-facing integration, test, and on-orbit support. Business Development and Government Strategy, led by Andrew Berg, David Harrower, Steve Good, Chris Fedele, Erin Hammons, and Weston Puckett, feed the pipeline and shape the roadmap. Ian Maron, VP of Talent & People Operations, oversees hiring. Leadership includes SpaceX, JPL, and prime alumni; the company emphasizes demonstrable hardware experience.
What the roles pay
Apex's salary band runs $100k–$215k, median $170k across 72 salaried roles on Zero G Talent's board. That's base pay before equity or bonuses. Levels.fyi reports a Software Engineer at the Common Range Average earning $165,240 total (base, stock, and bonus combined), sitting below the board's median base.
Live postings show how the band stretches by function and seniority. Director and VP roles (business development, supply chain, government relations, vehicle programs) start above $200k; the Business Development Director range reaches $600k, Zero G Talent's board data shows. Engineering roles cluster between $136k and $260k, with principal GNC positions above dynamics or software individual contributors.
| Role | Location | Posted Range (USD/year) |
|---|---|---|
| Business Development Director, US Government Markets | Los Angeles | $175,000 – $600,000 |
| Vice President of Supply Chain | Los Angeles | $250,000 – $300,000 |
| Vice President, Government Relations | Washington, D.C. | $240,000 – $300,000 |
| Comet Vehicle Director | Los Angeles | $220,000 – $280,000 |
| Principal Spacecraft GNC Engineer | Los Angeles | $200,000 – $260,000 |
| Spacecraft Dynamics Engineer | Los Angeles | $136,000 – $220,000 |
Source: Zero G Talent board, recent postings
The Business Development Director spread ($175k to $600k) is the widest, signaling a model where variable and equity scale heavily for revenue-critical hires. Engineering ranges are tighter, reflecting structured leveling; Principal GNC tops out at $260k base while Spacecraft Dynamics Engineer reaches $220k.
Equity matters. The careers page notes stock options in a "fast-growing startup valued at over $1B," a mark tracing to a $200 million Series D round at a $1B+ valuation, SpaceNews reported. That round was described as capital "into actually building products before the government ever says that they need it" — equity upside tied to a production-scale bet. Treat the $1B+ figure as the latest public marker; private marks shift between rounds.
Benefits fill the picture. 401(k) match: 100% of the first 3% of salary, 50% of the next 2% (a 4% max employer contribution on 5% deferral). Medical, dental, and vision premiums fully or nearly fully company-paid for employees and dependents (99% vision via Principle, 100% dental via Beam). Basic life insurance at $100k, company-paid. Time off: 15 vacation days, 10 holidays, Christmas-week shutdown, 6 sick days; at three years vacation rises to 20. Parental leave: 8 weeks paid, plus Dependent Care FSA, up to $350 daily childcare reimbursement, and a one-time $1,500 DoorDash credit. Flexible schedule and FSA access round it out.
Posted ranges are live: Apex says it's "hiring dozens and soon to be hundreds of roles" as it scales production. Candidates should reference the specific role's posted range.
How the interview pipeline filters
Apex runs a six-stage interview pipeline built to filter for technical depth and cultural alignment. The process moves deliberately because the operating tempo demands engineers who can context-switch between design reviews, production-floor issues, and flight-software debugging.
Stage one: a recruiter screen to share background and learn about the role. Stage two: a hiring-manager conversation probing functional strengths against the specific subsystem (GNC, avionics, structures, flight software, or integration and test). Stage three: a practical assessment tailored to the discipline; exercises mirror actual work. Stage four: onsite interviews in Los Angeles with a cross-section of the team to explore collaboration style and values alignment. Stage five: offer conversation and final alignment check.
Three traits recur in company messaging. Curiosity — the willingness to ask "why does this requirement exist?" — is the cultural foundation. Hunger — the drive to cover ground fast, to close loops without being chased — shows up in the "blistering speeds" language and the expectation that engineers own projects end-to-end from day one. Willingness to learn — comfort jumping into an unfamiliar subsystem — matters because the roadmap (Aries, Nova, Comet) forces constant context-switching across bus architectures.
The team composition reinforces the profile: military veterans, new graduates, former prime contractors, and startup veterans all sit at the same design reviews. Glassdoor shows four interview reviews and four questions, a thin but consistent signal the process is repeatable and transparent.
Factory One runs like a software product
Apex runs hardware operations out of Factory One, a 100,000-square-foot facility in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, opened in 2025. Design, development, manufacturing, and testing share one roof. On the production floor, a cell-based subassembly line feeds a linear integration cleanroom where the three productized bus platforms (Aries, Nova, Comet Mini) move through final assembly. A 66,000-lbf vibration table sits at the end of the line, letting teams qualify each bus to launch loads without shipping hardware to a third-party test house.
| Platform | Payload capacity (max) | Base power EOL | Target orbits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aries | 150 kg (100 kg on SpaceX Rideshare) | 175+ W (5 yrs) | LEO, SSO |
| Nova | 300 kg | 1 kW (7 yrs) | LEO, MEO, GEO |
| Comet Mini | 3,000 kg | 8 kW (20 kW peak) | LEO, MEO, GEO |
The facility's distinguishing feature is software. Apex's proprietary operating system, Octopus, links inventory management, production scheduling, and assembly work instructions into a single environment that adjusts dynamically to demand shifts. That integration lets the line target 200-plus buses a year at peak capacity across three platforms while keeping a baseline inventory of unassigned buses for short-lead-time missions.
The Playa Vista site also hosts the vertical-integration push: Apex machines structures, assembles harnesses, and integrates avionics in-house to cut single-source risk on long-lead components. Supply-chain agreements (master supplier agreements, dual-sourcing on key parts, advanced capacity reservations) are managed from the same floor. By end of 2026, Factory One will expand beyond its current footprint, adding space for bus assembly, deeper vertical integration, future-platform R&D, and end-to-end mission services. The expansion also creates surge capacity: when a government customer needs a bus in weeks instead of months, the line absorbs the order without derailing baseline builds.
A second footprint sits in Washington, D.C., where government-relations and business-development teams work near SDA, USSF, and NASA procurement offices. That office builds no hardware but shapes the requirements Factory One must meet.
For engineers and technicians hired into the roles on the Zero G Talent board (GNC, dynamics, vehicle directors, supply-chain leads), the daily environment is a factory that runs like a software product. Build data flows through a single system everyone on the floor can see.
Who lasts
Engineers and technical specialists who stay at Apex share a cluster of traits: they think in systems, default to hands-on execution, and treat ownership as daily practice. That profile maps to the problem Apex was founded to solve: breaking the satellite production bottleneck that persists even after reusable launch lowered orbital access costs. The answer (productized, configurable spacecraft designed for manufacturing at scale) selects for people who understand a design isn't finished until it can be built repeatedly, on schedule, with predictable quality.
Mo Zhao, a GNC engineer, described the appeal in a company Q&A: "I'm a big fan of working with a small team of capable and motivated engineers. Not only does this afford more agile decision-making, but it also allows me to see and learn about how all the components of the spacecraft come together outside of GNC." That cross-functional fluency is the baseline.
The careers page calls it a "shared sense of ownership" and a "relentless drive to push the boundaries of what's possible." The team comprises U.S. military veterans, new graduates, engineers from both startups and established primes, and professionals from across industries. The June 2026 acquisition of Oak Engineering (adding domestic composite layup and CNC machining capacity) reinforces the signal: Apex is vertically integrating the hard manufacturing steps most satellite shops outsource.
Comfort with ambiguity matters. A productized spacecraft line still means first-article builds, qualification campaigns, and the inevitable surprises when a design meets a machine shop. Pedigree matters less than a track record of shipping hardware that survived vibration, thermal vacuum, and the schedule pressure of a launch cadence.
The small-team model Zhao highlighted means decisions are made fast, often with incomplete data, and the person closest to the hardware usually carries the authority. The "relentless drive" language on the careers page describes a pace set by launch windows that don't slip.
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