Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

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9 stories

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SpaceXResearch ScientistNew Grad
Sep 2026

Speculative Decoding in a 60-Minute ML Coding Round

There were two 60-minute interviews: an ML coding round and a research chat. The ML coding round asked me to implement speculative decoding. I needed to write one normal decoding function and one speculative decoding function. The speculative function had the following interface in the prompt: The test case required the speculative-decoding implementation to produce its output faster than the nor…

Technical Screen0
SpacexSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Software Engineer interview at Spacex: interview experience

I got far enough to face technically intense screens that seemed built to test end-to-end understanding. Even when a question was posed as a hypothetical, it did not feel like a formula-memory exercise. It felt as though they wanted hands-on reasoning and confidence with fundamentals across the chain. The hardest part was a run of very pointed hypotheticals that seemed only loosely connected to m…

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SpacexSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Spacex Software Engineer interview experience

The recruiter-to-technical flow was fairly standard, but it became a full evaluation cycle. It started with HR or cultural fit, followed by technical conversations with team members. In one technical discussion, I spoke directly about prior jobs while several people listened and occasionally joined in. Later rounds demanded deeper understanding and clearer communication. The hiring manager was in…

HR Screen0
SpacexQA Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Spacex QA Engineer interview: recruiter support and onsite feedback

After a recruiter call, I went through a series of phone interviews that felt more structured than anything I had done before. There was another round with an engineer, followed by a hiring-manager call that ran about half an hour longer than I expected. That conversation stayed pretty chill, though they kept asking me to connect my background to their work. Soon after that, I was invited onsite…

HR Screen0
SpacexSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Spacex Software Engineer interview: a surprise half-day panel

I started with HR, then met a hiring manager and a technical team member before what was described as an onsite. By the time I reached the panel, the process had grown into a full half-day onsite interview. What caught me off guard was the framing. It had been sold as a simple, quick chat, but it was really a technical interview. After I answered, they pushed back with follow-up questions that se…

HR Screen0
SpacexSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Spacex Software Engineer interview: project details and a medium coding problem

The first round began with a resume dive and moved directly into technical questions. The interviewer focused on one of my projects and pushed on the details instead of accepting the high-level story. I felt they wanted clarity on my decisions and implementation choices, and much of the discussion rested on solid C++ fundamentals. After that, the process shifted to a coding assessment after the e…

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SpacexSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Spacex Software Engineer interview: first-principles and hardware-focused questions

The process started with a short recruiter call about my background, then turned technical almost immediately. The next call lasted about 30 minutes and felt grounded in first principles. I answered quick checks on fundamentals such as the ideal gas law and Bernoulli's equation, then moved into structures-style questions. Even when I did fine on the equations, it seemed they wanted tight, confide…

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SpacexSoftware Engineer
Reported Jun 2026

Spacex Software Engineer interview: one-hour onsite presentation

The process moved through several technical touchpoints quickly. I had three phone interviews with different people, then reached an onsite stage that became the center of the evaluation. There, I gave a one-hour presentation on my greatest achievement. It felt fast-moving and evaluative rather than conversational. After the presentation, I was sent home right away, so I never reached the longer…

Technical Screen0
SpacexQA Engineer
Reported Jun 2026

Spacex QA Engineer interview: electrical background and mechanical questions

The call began simply enough, but it quickly became a frustrating mismatch. The questions went beyond a general introduction. I was asked what I knew about Starship, then the conversation moved into technical fundamentals. What bothered me was how my technical background seemed to be treated as irrelevant. The role description and my coursework were in electrical engineering, yet the technical qu…

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What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

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