10 SpaceX engineering leaders
Starship accounts for five of these SpaceX engineering leaders' current titles, including two vice presidents and the directors for Crew Starship and the Super Heavy booster, while Jon Edwards, Senior Vice President of Falcon and Dragon, and two Falcon leads cover the flying fleet. They suit hardware teams deciding how fast to test, how to reuse vehicles, or how to organize engineering around one vehicle.
Professionals to explore
Chris Trautner
LinkedInExperience: VP, Falcon and Dragon Engineering · SpaceX
Falcon Vehicle Engineering is the single team behind Chris Trautner's SpaceX titles: Manager (2019-2021), Senior Manager (2021-2022), Director (2022-2023) and Senior Director (2023-2025), and VP, Falcon and Dragon Engineering since May 2025. That path makes Chris a fit for questions on how vehicle engineering for an operational rocket is organized.
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Eduardo Velazquez
LinkedInExperience: Director, Crew Starship Engineering · SpaceX
Crewed Starship vehicles, including the NASA Artemis lunar landers and commercial low Earth orbit and cislunar vehicles, are Eduardo Velazquez's responsibility as Director, Crew Starship Engineering since March 2022, covering engineering, architecture, production, integration and test. Eduardo was Sr. Manager, Human Landing Systems Engineering (2020-2022) and held Multibody Dynamics manager roles at SpaceX from 2011 to 2020.
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Joe Petrzelka
LinkedInExperience: VP, Starship Engineering · SpaceX
VP, Starship Engineering at SpaceX since January 2021, Joe Petrzelka also uses the title VP, Booster Engineering. Before Starship, Joe was Senior Director, Dragon Engineering (2019-2021), Director, Dragon Engineering (2018-2019), Senior Manager, Falcon Engineering (2017-2018) and Manager, Falcon Mechanisms (2016-2017), so Joe's SpaceX career spans Falcon, Dragon and Starship.
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Jon Edwards
LinkedInExperience: Senior Vice President of Falcon and Dragon · SpaceX
Senior Vice President of Falcon and Dragon at SpaceX since January 2026, Jon Edwards leads the teams behind both programs across design, build, test, launch operations, cost, reliability and performance. Jon was Vice President of Falcon Launch Vehicles (2020-2026), Senior Director of Vehicle Engineering (2016-2020), Falcon 9 Product Director (2014-2016) and Director of Stage Propulsion Systems (2013-2014).
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Jon Herman
LinkedInExperience: Senior Director, Starlink Constellation Engineering · SpaceX
Guidance, navigation and control teams, software teams and hardware operations teams make up Starlink Constellation Engineering, the group that operates and expands the constellation, where Jon Herman has been Director since November 2025 and Senior Director since June 2026. Jon was Sr. Manager, Fleet GNC (2023-2025), Manager, Fleet GNC (2022-2023) and Lead GNC Engineer, Fleet Management (2022).
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Melvin Peng
LinkedInExperience: Former Senior Director of Avionics Engineering · SpaceX
Avionics across Falcon and Dragon was supported by the Avionics Core Engineering team during Melvin Peng's time as Senior Director of Avionics Engineering at SpaceX (2020-2025); since April 2025 Melvin has been Senior Director of Hardware Engineering. Melvin also held Test and Life Cycle Engineering Director (2018-2020) and Avionics Test Engineering Director (2017-2018) at SpaceX, after Operations Vice President at BLOOMY.
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Ryan Moore
LinkedInExperience: Sr. Director, Falcon and Merlin Engineering · SpaceX
Reusability shows up early in Ryan Moore's SpaceX career as Manager of Falcon Reusability, Falcon Engineering (2018-2020), after Vehicle Lead Engineer (2015-2018). Ryan was Senior Manager, Falcon Engineering (2020-2022) and Director, Falcon Launch Vehicles (2022-2024), covering program management and product development, and has been Sr. Director, Falcon and Merlin Engineering since August 2024.
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Shana Diez
LinkedInExperience: Director, Starship Engineering · SpaceX
Shana Diez leads the Starship Vehicle Operations and Automation team of software and operations engineers as Director, Starship Engineering since October 2020, covering vehicle-level test planning, concept of operations, data review and operations planning. Shana's earlier SpaceX roles were Principal Engineer (2020), Director, Change Engineering (2017-2020), Director of Build Reliability (2015-2017) and Manager, Reusability Development (2013-2015).
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Tyler Schlenker
LinkedInExperience: Director, Starship Engineering · SpaceX
Tyler Schlenker is responsible for development and build engineering of structures and mechanisms on the Super Heavy booster, including thermal protection, aerostructures and stage separation, as Director, Starship Engineering since November 2024. Tyler was Sr. Manager, Starship Engineering - Super Heavy Booster (2022-2024), Manager, Starship Engineering (2020-2022) and a structures engineer and manager at SpaceX from 2016.
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Wil Wang
LinkedInExperience: VP, Starship Engineering · SpaceX
Structures is the thread for Wil Wang: Director of Statics Engineering (2012-2013), Sr. Director of Structures Engineering (2013-2015 and since 2019) and Sr. Director, Design Reliability and Vehicle Analysis (2015-2020) at SpaceX. Wil has been VP, Starship Engineering since March 2020 and cites more than 20 years in engineering management, a fit for structural design and reliability analysis questions.
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Choose the right perspective
For how a whole vehicle program is run, from design and cost to launch operations, start with Jon Edwards or Chris Trautner. Starship structures, booster and crewed lander questions fit Joe Petrzelka, Wil Wang, Tyler Schlenker and Eduardo Velazquez, and test planning and vehicle operations fit Shana Diez. Reusability on Falcon is Ryan Moore's background, while satellite fleet operations and avionics go to Jon Herman and Melvin Peng.
Questions to take into the conversation
- 01How does SpaceX decide when a Starship design change is ready for a flight test rather than more analysis?
- 02What engineering and ground work goes into flying a Falcon booster again, and how does SpaceX decide one is ready?
- 03How does SpaceX organize engineering for a crewed lunar lander compared with an uncrewed cargo vehicle?
About this directory
This is a professional research starting point based on business profile data retrieved on . Titles and companies reflect that source snapshot; roles marked former had ended by then. Check the linked profiles for current details. Inclusion does not imply Instant Expert membership or availability.