Space recruiting
Space employers divide into civil programs run by NASA and its contractors, national security programs run by the Space Force, the Space Development Agency and the intelligence community, and commercial launch and satellite companies that serve both.
Recruiters Workforce recruits software engineers, systems engineers, embedded and RF engineers, data engineers, cloud and DevSecOps engineers and program managers across all three.
The clearance line varies more here than in any other industry. Much civil space work is unclassified, national security space is TS/SCI, and commercial launch companies hire for both on the same campus, so a requisition must say which program the seat sits on.
Who hires in space
The organizations below describe where space work is done. They are named as facts about the market and none is a client of the firm.
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NASA centers
NASA lists its field centers and major facilities, among them Johnson Space Center in Houston, home of the astronaut corps and Mission Control; Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a multi-user spaceport with about 100 private-sector partners; Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville; Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, founded in 1959; the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, managed by Caltech as NASA's only federally funded research and development center; Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; and Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards, California. NASA Headquarters in Washington provides overall direction.
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Space Force commands
Space Systems Command is headquartered at Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, California, responsible for developing, testing and maintaining military satellite constellations and other Department of Defense space systems. Space Launch Delta 45 at Patrick Space Force Base controls Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the Eastern Range, and Florida was selected as the headquarters location of Space Training and Readiness Command at Patrick. Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs supports 111 mission partners including U.S. Space Command and Space Operations Command, Schriever Space Force Base ten miles east of the city commands Department of Defense satellites including GPS, and Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora is a link in the nation's missile warning and infrared detection satellite operations.
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The Space Development Agency
Established on March 12, 2019 with an address at the Pentagon, the Space Development Agency builds the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture in layers that include transport, battle management, tracking, custody, navigation, and ground and launch, and describes its charge as resilient, threat-driven and affordable military space capabilities with persistent, global, low-latency surveillance.
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Launch providers
United Launch Alliance headquarters its program management, engineering, test and mission support in Denver, manufactures in Decatur, Alabama, and launches from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg. Blue Origin's New Glenn manufacturing complex and mission control sit at Exploration Park outside the gates of Kennedy Space Center. Rocket Lab lists its business address in Long Beach, California.
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Satellite and spacecraft builders
Lockheed Martin describes its Littleton, Colorado work as satellite development and space mission planning and its Boulder work as space-based missile defense and secure communications. Northrop Grumman announced a 100,000-square-foot Highfield Integration Facility in Englewood, Colorado in June 2025, adding to a million square feet of Colorado infrastructure for space ground systems, and states that the B-21 program was digitally designed in Melbourne, Florida. Sierra Space is in Louisville, Colorado, and BAE Systems Space and Mission Systems delivers spacecraft for national defense and national security missions.
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Commercial spaceports and research parks
The Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport, licensed by the FAA in 2015, houses Intuitive Machines' Lunar Production and Operations Center and Axiom Space's headquarters. Spaceport America in southern New Mexico, run by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority next to White Sands Missile Range, lists Virgin Galactic, AeroVironment, UP Aerospace and SpinLaunch as tenants. Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne began in 1958 as an evening college for early space program staff.
Clearances and access in space
Civil space programs at NASA centers and their contractors fill many engineering seats without a clearance, and Public Trust screening is common for IT positions. National security space programs at Space Systems Command, the Space Development Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office and their contractors require Top Secret with SCI access, and the NRO requires a counterintelligence polygraph for all of its positions. Commercial launch and satellite companies hire on both sides of that line, so their requisitions name the program.
Because the Space Force's acquisition headquarters is in El Segundo, its launch ranges are in Florida and California, and its operations bases are in Colorado, cleared space engineers are spread across four markets with different costs of living and commutes. The submittal summary records where the candidate is willing to work on site and whether they hold a current TS/SCI.
Specialties we recruit for space
Markets with space hiring
Engagement models that fit
Launch and satellite programs run to milestone schedules, which suits contract staffing for integration, test and mission operations surges and contract-to-hire for seats expected to become permanent after a delivery. Direct hire fits NASA contractors and satellite builders with approved headcount. Retained search is used for chief engineers and program directors on national security space programs, where the combination of TS/SCI, polygraph and domain experience narrows the pool. The engagement models page compares them.
Questions about space recruiting
Do candidates from civil space programs move into national security space work?
Often, and the clearance is the gate. A systems engineer with launch or spacecraft experience but no clearance can be hired by a contractor with a facility clearance that is willing to sponsor a Top Secret investigation, but the sponsor bears the wait, which the Intelligence Community's own careers site puts at nine to twelve months on average. Programs that need someone this quarter write the requisition for a current TS/SCI holder.
Which space markets does the firm cover?
All of them, from Austin. The metro pages for the Space Coast, Houston, Huntsville, Denver and Aurora, Colorado Springs, Los Angeles and Albuquerque name the centers, bases and companies that shape each one.