First quick round with a recruiter with some basic technical questions. Then a longer interview with the team with more in depth background and qualification questions, with technical questions as well.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Statics problems with beam loading. How to get a moment on the contact point with no shear.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at SpaceX (Hawthorne, CA) in Dec 2025
Interview
6 interviews, recruiter screen, technical screen, panel presentation, I think there is also an on-site marathon set of interviews where you are expected to co.plete whiteboard problems. First two interviews were pretty softball, just asked about a specific project on my resume.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about your most impressive accomplishment.
I applied online. I interviewed at SpaceX (Hawthorne, CA) in Aug 2024
Interview
Applied online, contacted by a recruiter two weeks later. Initial phone screen with recruiter - mostly cultural fit questions with a couple simple technical questions. Next stage was a technical phone interview with senior engineer follow by another technical phone interview with the lead engineer. Both phone interviews were conducted within two weeks of one another. Two weeks later there was an onsite interview, consisting of a panel presentation and two 1v1 interviews and two 3v1 panel interviews, all but one being technical. The final 1v1 was a written test consisting of six different physics & engineering questions (FBDs, SFDs, circuits, statics & dynamics problems), in which the problems were designed to ensure you really knew your fundamentals. I did decent on most of the interviews except for the final written test. I received a phone call from the recruiter three weeks later indicating that they were proceeding with a different candidate.
Interview questions [6]
Question 1
(Initial phone screen) Define strain, define stress, and describe how they relate to each other.
(First phone interview) You are crossing a bridge consisting of two I-beams in a rover on Mars. Determine if the beam will hold. Determine the beam material. If this bridge was on Earth, would the system behave any differently? If yes, then how so?
(Second phone interview) Given a cantilever beam with an applied point load, where does the maximum shear force & moment occur? How would you redesign beam to optimize for stresses and minimize deflection?
(Second phone interview) Design a structural test on a cantilever beam. Where would you put instrumentation and why? Where would you place actuators to apply force and why?
(On-site panel interview) Design an actuator to perform a certain task given a set of constraints & system requirements (i.e., linear extension, max lateral deflection limits, force/pressure output requirements, etc.)
