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$137,500–$207,500.
Based on 240 similar postings.
Employer
About SpaceX
SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft with the mission of enabling humans to become a multi-planetary species. It operates the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship launch vehicles, as well as the Starlink satellite internet constellation.
SpaceX currently has
793 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$130,000–$165,000
across 557 roles with salary data.
As a Principal Hardware Engineer, Gateways & Customer Hardware (Starlink), you will join the Starlink team to take full ownership of developing millions of customer-facing products, including dishes, user terminals, and Wi-Fi routers. You will be responsible for the design, implementation, and verification of entire electrical systems for these devices, as well as next-generation gateways designed to withstand harsh environmental conditions while maintaining reliable communication. Your daily work involves driving system trades, requirements capture, component selection, schematic capture, PCB layout, prototyping, and hardware bring-up. You will collaborate with silicon, software, mechanical, and manufacturing teams to move products from concept to production. Required skills include experience with mixed-signal circuit boards involving processors, FPGAs, Ethernet, multi-GHz Serdes, DRAM interfaces, I2C, SPI, and power supply components, alongside proficiency in Python and C/C++.
Design, develop, and test highly reliable electronics for satellite communication.
Own the full lifecycle of customer-facing products including dishes, routers, and gateways.
Manage electrical system design from initial concept through to full-scale production.
Execute technical tasks including requirement capture, component selection, schematic capture, and PCB layout.
Perform hardware bring-up, debugging, and testing for complex electrical designs.
Develop physical and digital tools to analyze data collected in the lab and on orbit.
Ensure gateway hardware can withstand harsh environmental conditions while maintaining reliable communication.
Provide hands-on support through production, satellite integration, and flight phases.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer engineering.
8+ years of professional experience designing circuits, electronic products, or hardware.
Master's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or similar engineering degree (preferred).
10+ years of professional experience rapidly designing and delivering highly reliable products (preferred).
10+ years of experience designing mixed-signal circuit boards from concept through production using processors, FPGAs, and high-speed interfaces (preferred).
10+ years of professional experience testing, troubleshooting, and debugging electronics (preferred).
Strong understanding of computers and programming languages such as Python or C/C++ (preferred).
Must be a U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee to meet ITAR requirements.
Electrical Engineering
PCB Layout
Schematic Capture
Python
C
C++
FPGA
Ethernet
SerDes
DDR4
I2C
SPI
Hardware Bring-up
Debugging
Digital to Analog Converters