I was first contacted by a SpaceX recruiter through LinkedIn. The position was based in Hawthorne, CA.

The recruiter scheduled a brief one-on-one interview with me, in which general questions were asked. For example: "Why do you want to work at SpaceX?" and "Are you okay with working overtime?".

Afterwards, a phone interview was set up between two SpaceX employees and myself. Overall, I felt this phone interview went very well. The employees were very polite and laid back. They did ask more technical questions, specifically towards my resume. For example, "How would you solve the flow in a piping network?"

After the phone interview, I was scheduled for an on-site interview. I was very impressed by SpaceX's speed and smoothness of the interview process, considering this happened in less than two weeks.

The on-site interview involved a two-part process:

• The first part involved giving a technical presentation on a project I worked on to a team of SpaceX employees.
• The second part involved about 3 hours of one-on-one interviews with some of the same employees.

Unfortunately, I did not make it to the second part. As part of the interview process, SpaceX uses the technical presentation to consider if you are a good fit for their company. After you give the presentation, they ask you to leave briefly and make their consideration.

I felt my weakness was that I was not able to answer their questions adequately during the presentation. Their employees are very knowledgeable and ask technical questions. I would recommend being very prepared for technical questions. Try to give a presentation that you have worked on recently and have a very good mentor or supervisor. Make sure that you review the presentation with people who are knowledgeable on the material and/or understand good presentation skills.

Since SpaceX is one of the best (if not the best) for a die-hard space junkie to work at, it is understandable that they are very selective of their employees. Prepare and practice a lot if you really want to work there! Also, take pride in always improving your knowledge. Hopefully, there will be more opportunities for me in the near future.

Draw a free-body diagram of a check valve in a body of fluid flow.

Given the upstream and downstream pressures and the type of fluid, solve for the mass flow rate as a function of time for a check valve. Afterwards, write the pseudocode for how you would solve this.

Why do pressure losses drop in their defined behavior as the number of pumps decrease?

How would you lessen the pressure surge (water hammer) from a valve being closed?