I applied through university. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at SpaceX (Vandenberg AFB, CA) in Mar 2015
Interview
SpaceX visited my university, where I talked to an alumnus engineer. After, I got contacted by a recruiter, where I had a 20 minute phone screen. Two days later I had a technical phone interview with two engineers from the team I'd be working on. That day I was notified I got through to the final round. I went on-site a few weeks later and gave a twenty-minute presentation on a technical project I worked on and went through some more technical interviews. That day (again) I was notified that pending executive approval, I was to be given an offer. The process was very fast and the fact that you are notified of the results of that interview that day is particularly a nice change of pace.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If I had a quadrotor drone that worked on Earth and put it on Mars, how would it behave differently?
interview process was long and tedious. started with a recruiter screening, minimal technical questions, then moved to a hiring manager technical interview, following this was a technical presentation to a panel of engineers, i was then brought on site for an interview which included another pannel interview, site walkaround and questioning, then a written multiple choise mechanical assessmnet.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
shear and moment diagrams, fluid basics, pipe flow, compressible flow.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at SpaceX (Cape Canaveral, FL) in Nov 2025
Interview
The interview started with 15 minute going through your past project / experiences. Followed up with 15 minute rapid fire technical questions (3 questions including topics from mechanical, fluids, and FEA)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If your FEA tells you the part fails, do you trust it?
The first round was a technical interview with lots of rapid fire technical questions. It was over the phone which made it hard to stop and think about how to answer each question.