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The worse interview experience I've ever had. All started ok with a 15 minute call with recruiter: Simple questions about why you want to work, relevant experience, Willing to relocate. Fine if not a bit quick.

45 minute call with Hiring manager: Detailed experiences, relevant technical questions, seemed like a good guy, answered my questions and went well.

Technical task: You have 7 days to design a thrust actuator with full cad, sourced off the shelf parts, material selection, recommendations. Excuse me what? you know I have a full time job right?

I spend every waking minute outside of my current job for the next week pouring over tech specs, catalogues, reseaching aerospace lubricants, designing each component and providing justification for design choices and tradoffs, materials, finish and manufacturing processes for each part in the BOM. Produce a slide pack breaking all this down, along side full 3D CAD and referenced calculations. Submit my application and wait...and wait...and 3 weeks later after following up twice to the recruiter and no reply I recieve a clearly AI written email from a generic rocket lab email address and signed off by "The People & Culture Team". This email said:

"Your calculations were thorough for a first iteration, and your design demonstrated clear understanding of the fundamentals. The concept shows potential, and it’s evident that your expertise in mechanical design and practical engineering was applied thoughtfully throughout.

That said, the design is currently at a conceptual stage and would need further development to meet production-ready requirements. Specifically, there is room to enhance considerations for ease of assembly and manufacturing. We genuinely appreciate your contribution and the professionalism you’ve demonstrated. Your creativity, attention to detail, and problem-solving skills are evident, and we hope you continue to develop and refine the concept further."

Sorry so your issue was that you needed a more developed design? in one week? while Im working a full time job? for free? and the task specifically said concept? Also on concept the last line says "we hope you continue to develop and refine the concept further." What? why would I develop a concept further for a interview task?

I emailed twice to follow up and ask for more detailed feedback and to confirm this was the end of the application as the email didn't actually say, just implied.

So not impressed at all, feel like I had a glimpse into how RocketLab operates and am not impressed in the slightest.

"Design of an electric actuator system for the accurate control of a rocket engine nozzle" - They want it fully fleshed out and ready for release...