I applied online and was contacted by a recruiter two weeks later. The initial phone screen with the recruiter consisted mostly of cultural fit questions with a couple of simple technical questions.

The next stage was a technical phone interview with a senior engineer, followed 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. This consisted of a panel presentation and two 1-on-1 interviews, as well as two 3-on-1 panel interviews, all but one of which were technical. The final 1-on-1 was a written test comprising six different physics & engineering questions (FBDs, SFDs, circuits, statics & dynamics problems). These problems were designed to ensure a thorough understanding of fundamentals.

I performed decently on most of the interviews, except for the final written test. Three weeks later, I received a phone call from the recruiter indicating that they were proceeding with a different candidate.

(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?

(First phone interview)

How do you test a strain gauge to ensure it is working before a structural test?

(Second phone interview)

Given a cantilever beam with an applied point load, where do the maximum shear force and moment occur? How would you redesign the 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 and system requirements (i.e., linear extension, max lateral deflection limits, force/pressure output requirements, etc.).