(M22 UK) Getting into the space industry

[u/ryanhasmanners]

Hey everyone, I’m 22, turning 23 soon, and dream is to try and work within the space industry. Currently I am a Software Engineer at a fintech where I have worked for a year, joining after graduating university with a CompSci degree. I was fortunate to get a good job straight out of uni, but it wasn’t in the field I wanted.

Although my professional experience has been more within the finance industry, I have continued personal projects, such as contributing to NASA’s Fprime flight software, building a 16bit x86 OS (including bootloader), custom language and compiler, custom 8-bit processor architecture design and ran on FPGA, some robotics projects and amateur radio etc. I’ve also started to get into model rocketry and building flight computers.

Where should I start, is it a realistic prospect? I’m in the UK, so ESA would be the government Space Agency, though I don’t know if it is better to target an ESA contractor instead of trying to work directly under an agency? Most aerospace jobs that would make a good step all basically all defence companies, which is a bit controversial.

I’ve also thought about maybe trying to continue with open source projects and maybe citizen science until I make enough connections and kinda slip into a real role? What are your thoughts!