*** If you attempt to do the take home projects from Rocket Lab, be prepared to get ghosted from your recruiter after submitting it. ***

Don't let your passion for space and software let you fall into the same trap I did in hopes of getting your dream job in the space industry.

I don't normally write interview reviews however my time interviewing at Rocket Lab has left me feeling very defeated and my time unvalued. I spent a lot of time (25 hours) working on a take home project for a position I was very excited and passionate about only to get ghosted after submitting it.

Interview process

1. I was contacted by a recruiter after applying and was asked when I would like to begin working on a take home project. She repeatedly told me during our call that if the engineers were slow to grade my project, she would push them for an update and be in constant contact. None of this happened.
2. I provided dates to start the project
3. I received an email with two attachments containing the two part project on my start date.
4. I began working on the project for the next 5 days (25 hours total).
5. I submitted my completed project and followed up with the recruiter who said I would hear back soon on my project feedback.
6. After submitting my project, it has now been 3 weeks of radio silence from the recruiter after multiple attempts of contacting to get an update.
7. Update I decided to contact the recruiter one last time before posting this and received a generic rejection email with no feedback on the project a day later.

A simple rejection email takes less than a minute to send. Being ghosted for three weeks after putting in so much effort to a take home project is a terrible feeling and I now see why most people have a negative stigma towards take home projects. I will be avoiding these from now on.

Part 1. : Create a database with a specified structure and seed with given data.

Part 1.5 : Create a Django backend with specified endpoints and functionality

Part 2: Create a React frontend with specified functionality