Rocket Lab

The firm states that over 80% of internships result in employment with Rocket Lab. Postings on the careers board show summer and fall cohorts of 12 consecutive weeks of full-time on-site work, open to bachelor's, master's and doctoral students in engineering, physics or math with a minimum 3.0 GPA; a Fall 2026 Long Beach propulsion intern role is paid $28/hour. New Zealand students additionally have access to two firm-funded scholarships: the Rocket Lab Scholarship (up to NZ$20,000 of study fees, prioritised for students with connections to the Mahia/Wairoa region) and the Rocket Lab Women's Scholarship (up to NZ$10,000 over four years). The 80% conversion rate makes the internship the primary entry route here; a candidate eligible for it is in effect applying for a full-time hire on a 12-week probation, which raises the bar on internship selection beyond what a summer experience role usually carries.

Any US job posting states that employees must be "a U.S. citizen, lawful U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State and/or the U.S. Department of Commerce". The same policy applies across every US site – Long Beach, Albuquerque, Littleton, Middle River, Wallops Island, Stennis, and Washington DC. New Zealand roles carry a parallel restriction: candidates must hold citizenship of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the European Union, or a NATO country, and ineligible dual citizenship can also disqualify. Toronto roles require eligibility to live and work in Canada. This is a hard gate, not a sponsorship question: a candidate who does not meet the citizenship rule for the office they are applying to will not pass initial screening, no matter how strong the engineering match.

The firm states that its Electron rocket has delivered more than 230 satellites and is the second most frequently launched US orbital rocket annually, with 21 Electron missions flown in 2025 at 100% success. The company builds spacecraft selected for NASA missions to the Moon and Mars and supplied components used on the James Webb Space Telescope. The medium-lift reusable Neutron rocket is in active development, with Archimedes engine testing at Stennis Space Center and its Wallops Island launch site, Launch Complex 3, now complete and operational. For a candidate weighing one slot among aerospace employers, the unusual feature is exposure to both an actively-launching small-lift programme and a clean-sheet medium-lift one inside the same firm; that breadth is what would justify prioritising Rocket Lab over a launch-pure or satellite-pure competitor.