Founding Engineer
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Wage
$92,000 – $180,000/yr
Employment Type
Full-time
Apply for This Position
Posted on August 24, 2026
Job Description
Overview
Sapien is hiring Founding Engineers to kickstart the space resource economy, focusing on building cutting-edge hardware for space exploration.
Responsibilities
- Build a machine and test it in the desert before deploying it on the Moon.
- Have high ownership, responsibility, and decision-making freedom.
Requirements
- Experience designing & building cutting-edge hardware.
- A degree in engineering or a hard science.
- The ability to obtain authorization to work with ITAR-restricted data.
Benefits
- Health Insurance
- Dental
- Vision
- PTO
Additional Information
- Full-time in-person in the Hawthorne/El Segundo region of Los Angeles, CA.
Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental
Vision
PTO
How this job compares in Los Angeles, CA
Pay in context
At roughly $65/hr, this posting sits about 52% above the $43/hr median for welding jobs in Los Angeles, CA — toward the top of a $35–$61/hr middle band drawn from 60 postings with published pay. Put another way, it pays more than about 80% of the comparable postings we have wage data for. Pay that far above local median usually comes attached to something: a harder cert requirement, travel, night shift, or overtime that isn't really optional. Worth establishing which before you accept.
The local market in Los Angeles, CA
We're tracking 82 other active welding openings in Los Angeles, CA right now, from 54 different employers. 43 of them were added in the last week. Across California as a whole we're tracking 596 other active welding openings from 293 employers. A metro this active generally means you have real leverage — employers here are competing for the same welders. Browse every welding job in Los Angeles, or widen the search to California.
The most active employers in California at the moment, by number of open welding reqs, are SpaceX (34), Aerotek (16), and Volt (16). Volume like that usually means either a genuine expansion or a staffing agency working several client sites — worth knowing which before you apply.
Within California, the best-paying metros we track by median hourly rate are Redondo Beach at $65/hr, Long Beach at $49/hr, and Santa Ana at $48/hr. If you can relocate or commute, that spread is worth factoring in.
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Pay figures are medians computed from live postings in the Welding Pros index, not from survey data, and they move as employers post. Founding Engineer figures were last recalculated when this page was built.