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.
Submitted resume and then got a phone interview a few weeks later. The phone interview was with an engineer in the group interested in hiring me. Then someone from HR got in contact with me within the next week about the position
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Walk me through a time you had to think outside the box for one of your experiences listed on your resume.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at SpaceX (Hawthorne, CA) in Nov 2015
Interview
Two interviews, one with HR and one with the potential group you will join
If it doesn't work with that group they may recommend you to another group
Speak with HR-check if you fit the culture
Speak with potential group -technical