My job hunting journey in 2024
Interview Experience
Background: Bachelor’s degree:Computer Engineering Master’s Degree: ECE Interviews: January: SpaceX-
passed 4 hours take home exam, failed 45 minutes phone screen February: GE Health-failed first round
Full Details
Background: Bachelor’s degree:Computer Engineering Master’s Degree: ECE Interviews: January: SpaceX-
passed 4 hours take home exam, failed 45 minutes phone screen February: GE Health-failed first round coding(solved Leetcode Medium BFS problem) March: 1. Tiktok-
passed first round coding,
passed second round coding, failed third round coding 2. SpaceX:
passed 45 minutes phone screen-failed onsite interview(4 rounds at once in a day) April: 1. offered a job by a scammer, I actually believed it despite I was so desperate for a job… he/she provided a fake check asking me to retransfer the money back to them, then I realized it’s a scam ( I was traumatized that month) 2. Local R&D engineer role, after a video recording, HR disappeared 😅 3. Local startup role, CEO ghosted after I sent my resume over May 1. Offered a manual test engineer contract role for Samsung, but $25/h🥲 2. PACCAR-only one round, talked with both manager and team lead, failed 3. Meta -
passed online assessment, failed first round coding interview No interviews for June and July August: 1. Local startup for military- HR didn’t realize I’m not a citizen lol, so failed at HR phone screen 2. Microsoft contract role-solved all three coding problems in an hour, but lack of specilized skills No interview for September October: 1. Amazon contract role-offered, but this role is very hardware focused, which didn’t align with my expectations 2. Tiktok-failed first round 3. Tiktok-failed HR round November:
Passed ALL four rounds of one the FAANG, received my offer 😭😭😭 Don’t give up!! We will all get a job eventually!!!
About This Question
This is a candidate experience report from a spacex interview for a qa role during the oa round reported in 2025.
It covers the following topics: Graphs, Graph .
Difficulty rating: Medium
More Spacex Interview Questions
About Spacex Interview Reports
This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Spacex. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.
Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at Spacex are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the Spacex interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.
How To Practice This Type of Question
Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.
Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in Spacex reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Spacex Round
Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.
The single most predictive failure mode in Spacex reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's written notes.