Alex Meidt is a Becker graduate who will be starting a new job this week at SpaceX in California. 

Education

Meidt was born to Allison and Chris Meidt in St. Cloud, but moved around quite a bit when he was growing up. He lived for a time in Minnesota, Virginia, and Wisconsin and ultimately moved to Becker to finish his last two years of high school, graduating in 2016. 

“Moving around early in my childhood made it a lot easier to adapt to coming into college as well as interning at places I’ve never been before with people I’ve never met before,” said Meidt. “Change and feeling uncomfortable is good, it’s through these experiences that we grow and learn.”

Meidt’s parents still live in Becker.

After high school, Meidt went on to major in mechanical engineering at Iowa State University to pursue his interest in physics and engineering. 

“I have always had a strong curiosity for how things work and why they work that way,” Meidt said.

He liked the large student population, the huge engineering career fair the campus hosted each year, and the school’s encouragement of internships. 

Interning for Tesla

Meidt had been a fan of Tesla since high school, so during his junior year of college he applied for several different internships within the company. After a couple weeks, Meidt heard back about his application and was accepted into an internship working at Gigafactory 1 in Sparks, NV, working with the drive systems engineering team. Meidt said his internship last year threw him right into the thick of everything. 

“Critical and exciting work right from the start,” Medit said, describing his time in Nevada. “Making important decisions early on, fast paced, adapting daily to constantly changing priorities, juggling 7-8 projects at a time, constant communication between the team, vendors, technicians, and other cross functional teams.”

New Job at SpaceX

After completing his internship and graduating college, Meidt decided he wanted to work for SpaceX, another company founded and owned by the famous entrepreneur Elon Musk. He applied to several positions within the company, but was ultimately rejected. 

“I got a rejection from the first application, and applied to another position (Falcon structures) where I made it several rounds in, and also got rejected,” Meidt said. “The recruiter heavily encouraged me to apply to other positions that suited my interest. I found another position via Linkedin that I was very interested in and went through quite a few intense technical interviews with the Starlink team, and eventually [I] received an offer.”

He will be starting his new job on Monday, May 24, working as a manufacturing development engineer for Starlink, a company under SpaceX that focuses on satellite internet.

Meidt says he’s very excited to start working and learning new things. 

“I’m also extremely excited to meet and talk to people with similar interest and purpose driven goals within the engineering field,” he said.