# Jacob Balaj: CTO, Hop Aero

Canonical ID: `8627e72c-b1ae-4704-b4f8-9bb16505d933`

Jacob Balaj is the Co-founder & CTO of Hop Aero (YC S26). US Marine Corps (MV-22 avionics) → SpaceX (Falcon 9/Heavy, built booster refurbishment program) → Virgin Orbit (LauncherOne) → Masten Space Systems (led systems integration on NASA CLPS lunar lander) → SpinLaunch. A decade of making rockets fly on schedule.

- **Verification posture:** reported

## Current roles (2)

- [Hop Aero](https://registry.deploy.report/companies/hop-aero.md) Co-founder & CTO (secondary-verified)
- [Hop Aero](https://registry.deploy.report/companies/hop-aero.md) Co-founder (secondary-verified)

## Former / Previously (2)

- [SpaceX](https://registry.deploy.report/companies/spacex.md) Integration & Test Engineer (Falcon 9/Heavy) (secondary-verified)
- [SpinLaunch](https://registry.deploy.report/companies/spinlaunch.md) Integration & Test Engineer (secondary-verified)

## Sources (1)

1. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/hop-aero


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