SpaceX Bastrop Texas in 2026: 270 Jobs at the Starlink Mega-Factory
SpaceX Bastrop Texas in 2026: 270 jobs at the Starlink mega-factory
SpaceX's Bastrop facility is the company's second-largest hiring location with 270 open positions — and it's not building rockets. Bastrop is a Starlink manufacturing plant, producing 70,000 satellite internet terminal kits per week just 20 months after the factory started from zero. SpaceX has announced $280 million in capital investment and plans to expand by 1 million square feet over the next three years.
If you're imagining rocket hardware on the factory floor, adjust your expectations. Bastrop is high-volume consumer electronics manufacturing — the dishes, routers, and ground terminals that deliver Starlink internet to 5+ million customers. Here's what the jobs look like, what they pay, and what it's like living 35 miles southeast of Austin.
What Bastrop builds
Starlink user terminals — The flat-panel satellite antennas and WiFi routers shipped to residential and enterprise customers worldwide. This is the hardware that generates the majority of SpaceX's revenue. Production hit 70,000 kits per week in March 2025.
Semiconductor R&D — Texas awarded SpaceX a $17.3 million Semiconductor Innovation Fund grant in March 2025 for chip development at the Bastrop site. SpaceX is vertically integrating Starlink component manufacturing, designing and fabricating custom semiconductors rather than relying on external suppliers.
PCB manufacturing — Printed circuit board fabrication for Starlink terminals, with chemistry lab and process engineering supporting the manufacturing line.
Bastrop (35 miles from Austin) builds Starlink consumer hardware. Starbase (Boca Chica, 20 miles from Brownsville) builds Starship rockets. These are fundamentally different operations. If you want to work on rockets, look at SpaceX Brownsville. If you want high-volume manufacturing near a major city, Bastrop is the play.
Types of roles
The 270 Bastrop positions from our database span manufacturing, engineering, and business operations:
Manufacturing and production — Production associates, CNC machinists and programmers, process technicians, machine maintenance technicians, and production supervisors. These are the highest-volume roles. SpaceX is running a high-throughput factory line producing tens of thousands of units per week.
Engineering — Manufacturing engineers, automation and controls specialists, process engineers, chemical lab technicians, and chemists for PCB fabrication. The semiconductor R&D expansion is adding design and fabrication engineering roles.
Customer operations — Starlink customer support associates (multiple languages including Greek, Korean, Ukrainian), accounts receivable, and business operations analysts. Bastrop houses Starlink's enterprise sales and customer operations alongside the manufacturing floor.
Construction and facilities — Construction project managers and facilities staff for the ongoing expansion. With 1 million square feet of new space planned, construction roles will persist for years.
Food service — Baristas, cooks, and kitchen staff for on-site dining. SpaceX subsidizes meals at all locations.
Salary and compensation
SpaceX doesn't publish salary ranges for most Bastrop positions. From the limited data available in our database:
- Accounts Receivable Specialist: $80,000–$100,000
- Barista (temporary): $8–$12/hour
- Cook: Comparable to food service industry rates
For engineering and manufacturing roles, Bastrop pay likely tracks SpaceX's company-wide averages:
- Manufacturing engineers: $100K–$145K
- Production technicians: $42K–$79K ($20–$38/hour)
- Software engineers: $133K–$166K
All full-time exempt employees receive SpaceX stock options (6-year vesting, 2-year cliff). With SpaceX's ~$800 billion valuation, the equity component significantly increases total compensation.
Texas has no state income tax. A $100K salary in Bastrop takes home roughly $8,000–$13,000 more per year than the same salary at SpaceX Hawthorne, California.
Living in Bastrop and greater Austin
Bastrop is a small Texas city (~40,000 metro area) that's becoming an outer exurb of Austin's rapid expansion. The SpaceX hiring surge has accelerated this transformation.
Housing: Median home price ~$223,000 — dramatically lower than Austin proper ($611,000 in Travis County) and less than a third of Hawthorne, CA. Rent averages $1,370–$1,420/month, about 16% below the national average.
Commute from Austin: The factory is approximately 35 miles southeast of downtown Austin via Highway 71. Expect a 45-minute commute during peak hours. Many SpaceX employees live in southeast Austin suburbs (Del Valle, Elgin) to split the difference.
Proximity to Tesla: The Bastrop SpaceX factory is about 25 miles from Tesla's Austin Gigafactory. The two companies share an employee pool, and the SpaceX-to-Tesla (and vice versa) pipeline is active in the Austin area.
Lifestyle: Bastrop has a historic downtown with a growing restaurant and brewery scene, proximity to Bastrop State Park (lost pines, hiking, river access), and a small-town pace. If you want Austin's nightlife and food scene, you're making a 45-minute drive. If you want affordable housing and space, Bastrop delivers.
A SpaceX engineer earning $120K in Bastrop has roughly the same purchasing power as someone earning $190K-$210K in Hawthorne, CA — after accounting for state taxes, housing, and cost of living. Bastrop is arguably the highest purchasing-power SpaceX location outside of Brownsville, with the added advantage of proximity to a major metro area.
The expansion trajectory
SpaceX's Bastrop investment signals long-term commitment:
- April 2023: Factory announced, hiring begins
- Mid-2024: Production ramps up
- March 2025: 70,000 terminal kits per week achieved
- March 2025: $17.3M Texas semiconductor grant awarded
- September 2025: $8M expansion breaks ground (80,000 additional sq ft)
- 2026-2028: 1 million sq ft expansion planned, $280M total investment, 400+ new jobs
The Starlink business generates the cash that funds Starship development. As subscriber count grows (currently 5M+), Bastrop's production volume and headcount will scale proportionally. This isn't a facility that's going to shrink.
Work culture
Bastrop shares SpaceX's company-wide intensity, but manufacturing roles tend to have more structured schedules than the engineering-heavy sites like Hawthorne or Starbase. Production lines run on shifts — you'll work your assigned shift with potential overtime, but the 70-hour engineering weeks are less universal on the manufacturing floor.
That said, this is still SpaceX. The pace is fast, iteration is constant, and the production targets are aggressive. If the line needs to hit 70,000 kits per week and you're responsible for keeping machines running, you work until the machines are running.
Browse all SpaceX positions on Zero G Talent. For other SpaceX locations, see SpaceX Brownsville, SpaceX Redmond, or our complete SpaceX hiring guide. For other Texas aerospace jobs, browse Texas space jobs.
