I submitted my application online and then had a phone interview with a propulsion engineer. He asked questions about my background and then asked a few technical questions to test for intuition. The phone interview lasted about 1 hr 30 mins.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you test a check valve to quantify the leak rate?
I applied online. I interviewed at SpaceX (Hawthorne, CA) in Jan 2021
Interview
Applied somewhere around Sep-Oct 2020, got an email Jan 2021 notifying me that I was selected to interview with a team. Interviewed later that week with Lead Propulsion Analyst, was ~45 minutes of rapid fire questions on theory (incompressible, compressible, turbulence models, how to simplify CFD, standing shocks, normal shocks) with some time to chit-chat about the role.
Received an email the day after with a call for a second interview, with a Sr Propulsion Analyst, was more relaxed and we talked about my projects and portfolio more. Lasted about 30 minutes. Received a call two days after extending an offer for the summer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Which would have a higher Isp in a cold gas thruster, helium or nitrogen?
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at SpaceX in Oct 2014
Interview
Applied online, also got in touch with recruiting through networking contact. HR reached out to me within a week to set up a phone interview. Interview was with a few team members of the team that wanted to hire me into the group for the summer. Phone interview lasted at most 15 minutes, and interviewers sounded distracted and rushed to finish the phone call, didn't leave much time for me to ask questions about the position or the company at all.
A week later, received an offer from HR that was pretty vague as to the internship position. I was only given a week to accept.
