I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at SpaceX (Hawthorne, CA) in Nov 2015
Interview
I ended up interviewing for three different positions, two of them in propulsion engineering. I applied online at the beginning of September and then attended my school's career fair. The recruiter was able to pull up the application. We had a 20 minute or so conversation about SpaceX, the intern experience, my previous work/research experience, and why I was interested in the company. Technical questions were asked about my experiences. I didn't hear back until mid-October when I interviewed for a build reliability position. After about another week and a half I heard back that I did not get the position. I was contacted again mid-November to interview for another position, this time in propulsion. The interview was technical and lasted about 30 minutes. I interviewed for another position a week later. The interview was also technical and about an hour long. I heard back a couple of days after the third interview that I had gotten the second position.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Various technical structures questions (stress/strain, fracture, pressure vessels)
2. Basic fluids questions (pipe flow, Bernoulli, converging-diverging nozzles, choked flow)
3. Basic rocket propulsion (know the thrust equation)
4. Basic heat transfer (types, basic problems)
5. FEA/CFD analysis questions (how can you verify your solution is accurate - residuals, hand calcs, etc., how would you set up a fracture analysis in an FEA program, resolution of a boundary layer)
6. Questions about SpaceX (what are our engines and where are they used, what are our launch vehicles, what are our capsules, etc.)
7. For the first interview, some questions on PLM, SQL
8. Technical and non-technical questions about previous work/research experience - make sure you know what you did (obviously) and can explain it well. Be prepared for technical followup questions