&gt;How can ULA hire anyone beyond third-pick candidates?<p>I have some good friends that work for $unamed_spacex_competitor and their claim is essentially that spacex is considered a &quot;bad&quot; job in the industry.  They talk about it like it&#x27;s a sweatshop.<p>Honestly, I think it&#x27;s just jealousy.  If you meet somebody and tell them you work for spacex, they think you&#x27;re a rockstar.  If you meet somebody and tell them you work for Boeing, they say &quot;oh, I didn&#x27;t know Boeing made rockets, you should go work for spacex!&quot;.<p>It <i>does</i> sound like SpaceX is long hours and hard work...but a lot of people really enjoy that sort of thing.