I applied online. I interviewed at SpaceX (Hawthorne, CA) in Oct 2016
Interview
Got a call out out of the blue saying I was being considered for an internship. And then went through two phone interviews with the group that was considering me.
Both interviews were technical in nature. Mostly asked about me to expand on my previous experience and projects. There was a lot of emphasis on how I approached the design process (Figuring out design requirements, architecture selection, part selection, and testing/verification etc.)
There was 1-2 weeks of lag time between the interviews and learning that I was proceeding to the next stage.
After there was a 2-3 week lag before I heard back with my final decision. I had to email my recruiter to ask them to follow up (I had heard from my 2nd interviewer I should expect ~1 week turnaround time.)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A lot of emphasis on my previous projects and the actual engineering process I took. Got asked about the following projects:
- Analog sense box PCB: what where the accuracy and bandwidth requirements (and how were they derived)? What general architecture did I use and why? What drove the component selection? If I could redo the project what would I have redone?
- Backup power monitor: What was the motivation for the circuit? What were weird requirements about it? Why did I use an Ideal Diode IC as opposed to just using a Power Diode.
-Safety Critical Robot: What was the control architecture? What comms protocol was used? What fault tolerance measures were in place and why?
The main thing they try to gauge is A) How much technical experience do you have and B) (most importantly) How do you reason through an engineering challenge.
Resume rundown in full detail. Be sure to back it up with technical knowledge. Spacex requires you to know a lot especially if it’s on your resume. Asked standard EE and CE topics related to your resume.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at SpaceX in Jan 2024
Interview
I had a phone call interview with a couple engineers on the team. It was a mix of technical, behavioral, and past experience questions. The majority of the questions were technical ones regarding my past experiences from my resume.
I applied through college or university. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at SpaceX in Feb 2023
Interview
Interviewed for the Starship Booster Engineering Team, with a focus on fluids/fluid structures and valves. Started with overview about the position, resume/project deep dive with technical questions interlaced and "ask me anything" to finish.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
You are given a cryogenic valve for your flight vehicle: 1. What are things you have to worry about when filling the vehicle? 2. You have a certain fill time to meet. How do you size the valve? 3. Say you have the hardware already built but your fill time is too high. How can you fill faster?
