I received a call from a SpaceX internal recruiter about 3 months after originally applying online. I had originally applied to a structural engineer job, but they wanted to interview me for a propulsion components design job instead. The recruiter asked me some general questions about my interests, than had me set up a technical phone interview with a couple engineers for several days later.
The technical interview was with two of their current propulsion designers. They asked me some general technical questions about the dragon spacecraft (thrust of the draco and superdraco engines), had me explain projects from my resume I had worked on, and then asked a few technical questions about my past experiences (e.g. why I used a certain material, how I could improve a design). The phone interview lasted about 45 minutes. They said they would get back to me within 3 days, and the next day I received an email requesting an interview at their facility in Hawthorne, CA.
Flight, hotel and rental car to LA were set up with me and all covered by SpaceX. I was asked to make a 15 presentation in PowerPoint about a project I had worked on to present first at my interview. This was somewhat difficult as my main design experience was on projects that were proprietary, so I had to mostly discuss academic work.
When I arrived at their office for my interview, I was met by the recruiter and than given a tour of the offices and manufacturing facility. Then we went to a conference room where I gave my presentation to about 10 people who I believe were mostly other propulsion team members. They asked me a few questions about my presentation. Then I had lunch with one of the other employees at their in house restaurant, before proceeding with my one on one interviews. My first one on one interview was with the director of the dragon propulsion system, who simply gave me a written test on GD&T practices (calculating tolerance zones) and then had me finish dimension and material annotations on a drawing by hand. Other than that he only asked me general questions about my career interests. The second one on one interview more difficult, where the interviewer asked me to simply start designing a part by hand, with tolerances, datums and dimensions off the top of my head. He specifically asked to design a bolted connection to resist shear stress, and asked how I would calculate the torque rating for a bolt to apply a specific preload. I did not do well on this part as I have had only a limit experience with GD&T and no experience with bolt preloading.
After my interviews the recruiter told me they would get back to be within 3 weeks. After 3 weeks went by with no contact, I emailed the recruiter for an update but received no reply. After several months I gave up on the job. I eventually received emails saying the position had been eliminated/filled.
Overall the interviews got progressively more difficult as they went on, and for the design job they heavily stressed knowledge of GD&T and materials. I believe the main reason I did not get the job was my lack of relevant experience, although I found their expectations steep considering they knew I had essentially entry level experience going in. Besides this the interview experience was positive besides them not even contacting me after my final interview.
