I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Astranis (San Francisco, CA) in Mar 2022
Interview
Several video interviews followed by an all-day onsite interview. The whole process took about 3 weeks and was quite speedy. The first video interview was with an engineer and the second was with a team lead. A week later they invited me to an onsite interview with a 60 minute presentation where I'd present a previous technical project and a take home project. After the presentation I had 3 more individual interviews with several engineers on the mechanical engineering team. Finally, I had a video interview the next day with a technical director.
Needless to say, with the 7 interviews and take home project the interview process asks a lot of you. Throughout my process, I was given a lot of positive feedback and encouragement, however, after all of it I was given a quick 5 minute phone call telling me I would not be given an offer. When I followed up asking why, they said it was against their policy to disclose their hiring reasoning.
So at the end of it I had spent a lot of time and energy on the interview process with only positive feedback and no offer. I was honestly really excited at the possibility of working at Astranis, it seems like a great place to work, so it was really heartbreaking for me that it turned out this way.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The take home project was to design a concept for internal bracketry for a satellite bus. The bracketry had to structurally isolate the nadir panel which had communication devices that had high pointing accuracy requirements. The brackets must also be able to react a launch load of 10g's. Consider thermal expansion as well.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Astranis in Jul 2024
Interview
I met a recruiter at a networking event and took a month for them to reply to a direct message. They set me up with 2 interviews for 2 open positions. The first interview was only about cantilever beams and natural frequency. (I did interchangeably use the terms 'moment of inertia' with 'second moment of area' when talking about stiffness and bending but they saw this as a confusion on my part - its a really nuanced difference).
The interviewer had technical difficulties, was running late, and had to rejoin the call/ didn't hear me a few times.
The postings imply that they are looking for people with room to grow, esp new grads, but the interview process just gave me the vibe that they were looking for the PERFECT candidate.
For the second interview, they sent me a broken availability link (which I quickly notified them of and listed my available times) then I got ghosted. Now, about a month later, I was emailed to know that they did not receive my availability and the position has closed.
TLDR: I only got 1 first round interview, was a pain to set up, got ghosted, and neutral/bad interview experience - they are looking for the PERFECT candidate (even if their postings have wording that imply they are willing to invest in growing with you) (ex. apply even if you dont meet all the credentials)
Interview questions [5]
Question 1
How would you optimize natural frequency of a cantilever beam?
You have to design a cantilever beam on the spot (draw on paper and show on screen). For the corner of a space vessel. What do you need to keep in mind?
You have to optimize the natural frequency of a cantilever beam. For a constant mass, choose between steel and aluminum.
keep in mind if something has less density, you can have greater volume, how does this change your answer?