below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
80%
of similar roles. Most pay
$151,981–$214,000
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$215k
versus about
$183k
for comparable roles.
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 554 roles with salary data.
The Sr. Software Engineer (AI Data Engineering) joins the Artificial Intelligence Data Engineering Software team to build AI-powered tools and automation for launch vehicles and spacecraft. You will partner with engineers across avionics, propulsion, and structures to identify repetitive tasks and develop solutions that automate data review, flag anomalies, and surface insights from large telemetry datasets. Key responsibilities include designing agentic AI systems, multi-agent workflows, and MCP servers, as well as building internal web dashboards and data pipelines. You will utilize Python, pandas, NumPy, SQL, and REST APIs to manage relational, non-relational, and vector databases. The role requires developing production-grade tools using React, TypeScript, FastAPI, Flask, Docker, and Kubernetes to solve complex engineering problems within flight-critical environments and accelerate the reuse of launch vehicles.
What does a Software Engineer earn in California?
Median $214500 from 1206 postings across 79 companies.
Identify repetitive engineering tasks and build software tools to automate them.
Process large telemetry datasets and hardware databases to flag anomalies and surface insights.
Design agentic AI systems, multi-agent workflows, and MCP servers for internal data querying.
Integrate automation tools into CI/CD pipelines and existing mission workflows.
Build internal web dashboards to display mission status and data review results.
Prototype and iterate tools into production-grade, maintainable software.
Validate AI outputs against known-good results to ensure reliability in flight-critical environments.
Track engineering hours saved to measure the return on investment for all developed tools.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's degree in computer science, data science, engineering, math, or physics; OR 4+ years of professional experience building automation for engineering use cases.
5+ years of experience in software engineering with a focus on automation tools and/or AI integrations.
5+ years of programming experience in Python.
Must be a U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident, refugee, asylee, or eligible for required Department of State authorizations.
Willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed.
Track record of building tools that end users adopted, including gathering requirements and iterating on feedback (preferred).
Comfort processing large engineering or scientific datasets using tools such as pandas and NumPy (preferred).
Hands-on work building complex agentic AI systems, multi-agent workflows, and MCP servers (preferred).
Python
SQL
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Deep Learning
Generative AI
Computer Vision
TensorFlow
PyTorch
Large Language Models (LLMs)
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
Medical Imaging
Robotics
Statistical Modeling
Data Analysis
Algorithm Development