Intern At SpaceX This Summer: 13 Tough Interview Questions You Need To Answer

By J. Navarra

Apr 02, 2016 08:08 AM EDT

Looking for a summer internship job?

You can definitely intern at SpaceX - only if you're able to answer their tough interview questions. However, it's not easy. The hiring process is so deep that it might need you to calculate formulas in a split second, as told by Glassdoor. Which is a good thing Business Insider was able to gather 13 tough interview SpaceX internship questions that can give you a head start:

How would you find a cycle in a singly-linked list?
There are all kinds of data structures out there, like arrays & heaps. Why can't there just be one that does it all?
Imagine a cantilever beam fixed at one end with a mass=m and a length=L. If this beam is subject to an inertial force and a uniformly distributed load=w , what is the moment present at a length of L/4?
Describe the design process of a series of pipes to be used in a rapid fueling system for a liquid propellant rocket engine. Include the equations that would be best for the case at hand for fluid pressure calculations & structural considerations.
One side of a beam is attached to a wall & the other is free. If a force is applied, where would it break, & what would you need to know to determine the force that would break the beam?
What happens when you run a high current (spot welding) through a nickel piece touching a copper piece?
How do you reverse a stack, using only the pop & push methods?
What are composites?
What is the size of an integer on a 32bit system?
Let's say you have a variable 'var' assigned to be '2'. What will display if you print 'var++'? If you print '++var' on the next line, what will be displayed? What is the final value of 'var'?
What's a null pointer?
If you have a large, heavy object moving fast, how do you safely slow it down?
How would you go about a design for an electrical harness to protect it from a sharp object falling from above?

While most companies hire interns during the summer and task them to fetch coffee, organize paperworks and run errands - SpaceX actually lets their intern do hands-on work. Hundreds of interns join the California based company annually. Each of them spend 80 hours in the dynamics, avionics, launch, manufacturing and enterprise information departments. The company will let you design, build and launch rockets that can potentially take humans to Mars. On top of that, they get paid at $20 per hour.

Were you able to answer all of them? Then you may just have a shot at that SpaceX internship.