SpaceX visited my college and hosted an info session where I learned about the kind of resume they prefer. I made the suggested changes: fading out all non-engineering extracurriculars and leaving only work experience and projects. I then gave it to a recruiter the next day at the career fair.

A few weeks later, I received two calls from two departments.

I knew nothing about the first one. A guy called me on his personal phone and started asking questions about my resume on the spot. I know my resume well, and normally this sort of encounter would have been fine, but the fact that it was SpaceX made me nervous, and the interview did not go well.

The second department interviewed me through SpaceX HR, which follows a two-step technical phone interview process. I knew when and who the call was going to be with, so I had an extra day to prepare. The first interview with this department focused solely on my resume. The two interviewers would ask a question about a bullet point on my resume, I would explain, and they would dig deeper with more questions, to the point of asking me specifically which formulas I used to solve a specific task or what types of forces/stresses a particular part saw. This was to see if I truly took ownership of my work and understood it.

Make sure you know what you're talking about by studying every little detail of your past work. If you don't have an answer, try to explain how you would find it.

What was the hardest thing you've ever done?