I applied online and was referred through a friend. First I was contacted by a recruiter and we set up a call. She wanted to know what I've worked on. We chatted about programming languages, my interests, "why space x". We arranged a technical phone screen with a member of the team. Technical phone screen was very good. I was supposed to talk about a technical project I've worked on and my contributions. I picked the system I work on at my current job. This was not difficult. It would only be difficult to someone who is trying to BS. They just want to know if you contributed, how, and why. Don't stress out here just be yourself! Phone call from recruiter and then we set up a take home code challenge. It is not a leetcode problem! It is a fun little problem that you can probably solve if you code at your day job. The most complex code thing I did here was recursion and just understanding Big O trade offs. This problem is about translating requirements into code. The final round is a technical interview. This interview is significantly easier than a facebook interview. No leetcodes, mostly just trivia. E.g. "how does a hash map work? How does a c++ vtable work? How does an OS store memory?" I did not get all of these questions. I would have known them right out of college but that was a decade ago. I answered most of them and the ones I missed were some of the more out-there ones. I received the offer but SpaceX cannot match even 60% of my current salary and I cannot do that to my family right now.