Overall, the process was extremely smooth and quick. The interviews were more difficult than average, but not unreasonable.

I was contacted by a recruiter for a Starlink team in Redmond, WA. I was initially interviewing for a full-time position, but I transitioned to an internship (with potential for a full-time position) after expressing interest during my interview with the manager.

I had 3 phone interviews:

• Screening: Introduction, basic questions about my resume, and some technical questions (don't overthink these - I went into some design concepts, but the recruiter also wanted me to specifically give simple textbook answers).
• Manager: Half technical, half deep dive into my resume and projects. Be prepared to go into detailed specifics of your contributions in projects and work, including engineering fundamentals, measurable improvements, and next steps. They will ask about your assumptions and challenge them. My technical questions were related to heat transfer and mechanics.
• Team Member: Another deep dive into one of my projects - I was steered towards talking about different concepts than my discussion with the manager (mechanical fundamentals instead of thermo/fluids/heat).

The whole process took less than a month. The recruiter was very communicative during the whole process.

Q: You have 2 plates connected with a bolt, with a force applied to the plate horizontally. What is the primary failure mode? What is the equation for the stress? How can you reduce these failures?

Q: In a simple RWD car, how much torque is required at the rear wheel? (They wanted a first-order approximation equation.)

Q: What are the modes of heat transfer? What factors govern the effectiveness of each method?

Q: You have 2 dimensionally identical metal plates bonded together, 1 steel, 1 aluminum. They are heated together to the same temperature. What will happen? Which is in tension/compression?

Q: Give an example of a time you showed extreme effort.

Q: I have to write a letter to my CEO - how should I justify hiring you?

Q: Have you received any awards that you are proud of?

(In the context of an automotive cooling loop) Q: Give me a detailed explanation of what happens to one "particle" of heat in your system. Q: How did you determine your safety factor? Q: What assumptions did you make? Is there anything wrong with them?

(In the context of a mechanical fixture) Q: How did you arrive on this shape? What are the alternatives? Q: How did you set up the FEA for this? Q: How did you choose your material? What were the tradeoffs?