Every Job Is a Space Job: Expanding Awareness of Careers Beyond Engineering
As commercial space growth accelerates, it is also struggling to keep the workforce engaged and growing. In a recent episode of the T-Minus Space podcast, host Maria Varmazis spoke with our Director of Policy Tahara Dawkins and Mary Baldino, Director of Sales and Marketing at Viya Space, about the evolving state of the space workforce.
As the Space Industry Grows, Gaps Emerge in the Workforce
While recruitment remains strong, the conversation highlighted a growing “missing middle” of mid-level professionals who leave the space industry due to unclear career paths, cultural misalignment, or the growing pains of a sector that is still finding its footing.
Tahara pointed out that part of the retention issue could be that space maintains a close-knit community that doesn’t look outside of itself for talent. “Space people traditionally like to go to space events to talk to space people about space things. The answer to me is, we’ve got to stop that,” she said.
The Aging Space Workforce and Talent Pipeline Development
Tahara also sees awareness of the types of job available inside the industry as another hurdle. While today’s space ecosystem includes marketing, legal, manufacturing, and more roles, that message hasn’t reached jobseekers—or it isn’t strong enough to keep them in roles. “Space doesn’t brand well outside of NASA. Once we get better at branding what our passion is, what it is that we’re doing in space, I think it will be easier to see yourself in a job you didn’t even know existed,” she said.
The need to address this becomes more urgent as those in traditional ‘space jobs’ get closer to retirement. “It’s an aging industry,” said Tahara. “68% of space workers, for the jobs that we do define, are over 55.”
To attract more talent and, more importantly, keep them, the space industry must do a better job of reaching outside of its usual network. This could look like stronger branding, outreach to non-space communities, and mentoring. Tahara and Mary agreed, the mission is to communicate that any job could be a space job, and ultimately, space is for everyone.
Listen to the full conversation here.
