SpaceX Interview Questions

I go to security and wait in a smoking area. I get there and am picked last to interview. I get in the room and to my surprise two people I never heard of the whole 30 minutes they were typing like it was an interrogation like I am a criminal. They did not value my experience being overqualified. I even studied Radar in the Navy a rated electronics mechanic!

The interveiw process was long but felt like they were careful in determining who they would allow. Each step took about a week. I only got through 4 steps before being dropped.

Interviewer was almost an hour late and barely apologized. They were then very rude, yawning while I was answering questions or laughing at my response. Questions were very very technical and pointed with no warning from recruiter.

Phone screening with recruiter, 30 minute technical interview over the phone, either another phone interview or they fly you out in person to do tour of SpaceX facilities and 6 more interviews.

The first thing was take home assignment and after that, had a phone screen and an onsite interview at the Redmond office. The onsite consisted of presenting a demo project which was a new for me.

3 coding interviews, general white boarding questions and nice people overall. It was in the Seattle office. A little unorganized. A few theory questions, and some white boarding questions were asked to me.

Recruiter screen basically to make sure I could put together a sentence, whiteboard interview with engineer, next step would have been on-site in LA but I did not make it past whiteboard.

Very long and complicated without a definite ending. Started with an introduction call and then spanned 4 more interviews with the discussion of a future presentation after those. Wasn't given clear direction after an interview and the recruiter seemed rushed and unprofessional.

Was referred to a senior role and downleveled during interview process. Similar interview process to others, phone interview and then onsite without breaks/food. Minimal attention to candidate experience which they can probably get away with in a market like this, but short sighted. They ask you to submit the same information about yourself at least three different times, in three different places. Recruiters seem like brilliant people who care about what they do but are overworked and underpaid. While the job description reads sr technical recruiter, what their real need and budget is probably a sr technical sourcer who they can teach how to close since they have very strict salary bands. No specific hiring manager or team that you interview for, you do not get to meet your hiring manager i.e. they decide after. Some of the recruiters have been there a very long time and don't seem open to or curious about how things are done at other companies. Their goal is more - how can this person adjust to SpaceX? rather than, what types of value or perspectives can this person add to SpaceX to make it better? Some of their leaders are newer and it would have been great to have more time with them. During an interview question that was tough, recruiter showed lots of frustration and exasperation, and little desire for candidate to do well or better. Perhaps they forgot that they were interviewing another recruiter. The company itself is amazing and has a real opportunity regardless of the decision they make on the candidate to leave them with a positive experience about the important work they are doing because it will affect our world for generations to come.

The process essentially was a couple of Basic Technical Questions. Person was extremely rude and clearly did not care about the interview. I ended up declining second round and that is pretty much what happened.