Spirit AeroSystems Internship Opportunities: Launch Your Aerospace Career
Spirit AeroSystems is dedicated to building the future of flight by attracting and hiring talented, hard-working new employees. They offer several internship programs aimed at educating tomorrow’s leaders about modern manufacturing and providing real-world aerospace experience. Spirit AeroSystems internships provide valuable experience and a glimpse inside what a career in the aerospace field might look like.
High School Internship Program
Spirit AeroSystems offers High School internships for 16-18 year olds, providing a chance to learn about Spirit’s wide-ranging capabilities and innovative engineering, finance, manufacturing, and supply chain processes.
Who: Junior or Senior students that are 16 years old before their start date and have an interest in the advanced manufacturing industry.What: Students in this paid program ($14/hour) receive practical and applicable insight into sheet metal and composites assembly, fabrication, machining, manufacturing engineering, quality inspection, supply chain, and finance. Students in this paid program receive practical and applicable insight into sheet metal and composites manufacturing, machining, tools and processes, or engineering, finance and supply chain careers.
College Internship Program
Spirit AeroSystems’ college internships are designed to develop real-world skills beyond aerospace assembly and manufacturing. The Spirit AeroSystems Summer College Internship Program is full of opportunities to grow and succeed as a young professional.
Benefits of Interning at Spirit AeroSystems
- Real-World Experience: Internships shouldn’t be about sitting in a cubicle, working on a project made up for you. Internships should be about getting valuable experience and a glimpse inside what a career in that field might look like. Spirit AeroSystems’ college internships are designed to develop real-world skills beyond aerospace assembly and manufacturing.
- Valuable Learning: Students in this paid program receive practical and applicable insight into sheet metal and composites assembly, fabrication, machining, manufacturing engineering, quality inspection, supply chain, and finance.
- Competitive Pay and Benefits: Spirit AeroSystems offers more than just competitive pay to its employees. Employees are happy at Spirit Aerosystems and rate their office perks as neutral.
- Mentorship: In addition to technical skills, students are assigned a mentor who helps participants learn soft skills, such as navigating the corporate environment. Spirit is welcoming back former exemplary employees to teach, train and mentor.
- Networking Opportunities: "We had opportunities to network as part of the overall internship program and also just as finance interns,” Brice says. “There was also a leadership series where speakers would come in and talk about different things. My favorite one was the speaker on volunteerism. Other speakers covered topics like what your resume should look like from the recruitment perspective.
- Exposure to Leadership: One of the hallmarks of the Spirit college internship experience is the access interns receive to Spirit’s executive leadership team and the opportunity to not only take part in but also to lead key Spirit projects. “The finance interns also got to meet with the CFO,” says Brice. “It was intimidating at first, but then he sat down with us and was, like, a normal dude.
- Collaborative Environment: “Collaboration was really built into the team,” observes Brice. “I had to work with people because I was still learning what I was doing, but I saw others collaborating all the time. Such a collaborative environment encourages learning.
- Fun and Engaging Culture: It’s summer, interning should not be only a learning experience, but also an enjoyable one. Spirit Aerosystems employees say they’re never bored at work. “The team had a great culture. My dad has worked at Spirit for forty years, so basically everyone knows who he is and would good-heartedly bring him up. We’d also play trivia and try locally owned restaurants regularly.
Intern Perspective: Brice Helton's Experience
Brice Helton, a college senior at Emporia State University and former intern with Spirit’s internal audit group, shares his experience:
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- Trust and Responsibility: “The group I was interning with trusted me with a lot, which I really wasn’t expecting,” says Brice. “From my first day, the internal audit group treated me like a fresh auditor coming in,” says Brice. “They trained me and threw me into the fire to lead my own audit, which is how I like to learn. I wasn’t alone, though.
- Learning Through Mistakes: One of the things I appreciated most was when I made a mistake, it wasn’t fixed for me.
- Understanding the Role: Through Spirit’s internship program, Brice’s glimpse into being an internal auditor helped him understand what that type of role looks like. “When I started, I’d never taken an internal auditing class before,” says Brice. “That was nerve-wracking. I didn’t know what I was doing!
- Career Path: Brice’s experience gave him the setting to find his path and blaze it. He figured out where he wants to start his career, got a grasp of what it’d be like, and now he gets to put it into practice when he starts as a full-time employee. “I was excited to get the offer,” Brice says. “And I’m excited to start.
Recognition and Awards
Recently Spirit AeroSystems was selected as a US Top 100 Internship Program by a panel of industry experts. This selection was based on their program having a focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, intern professional development, social activities, career shadowing opportunities, mentoring support, and the conversion of our interns to full time employees.
Key Internship Activities
- Project Expo: This event allows nearly 40 interns to present their summer projects to executive leadership, managers, and fellow interns. Project Expo is very competitive and only the best of the best are selected to participate.
- Museum Trips: One of the more unique activities for our summer interns are the trips we take to Museums. Our Wichita interns have the privilege of visiting the B-29 Doc Museum and the Kansas Cosmosphere. Interns at our other sites such as Tulsa, Kinston, and Dallas visit local museums as well!
- Leadership Presentations: Every summer Spirit AeroSystems makes a point to expose their interns to presentations on leadership. Interns learn from inspiring leaders on topics such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, leading in a pivot, and leading through volunteering.
- Social Events: A Spirit AeroSystems internship wouldn’t be complete without some fun social events! Spirit always carve out opportunities for their interns to connect socially through multiple events including food truck nights, local baseball games, city festivals, and all city intern gatherings.
- Volunteer Opportunities: Spirit AeroSystems is a company full of employees who take pride in serving the communities they live in. Their interns are able to join in this giving culture by volunteering at different events throughout the summer. To learn about volunteer opportunities with Spirit, please register with the HR Service Center.
The Future of Flight and Sustainability
Join the booming aerospace industry with Spirit AeroSystems! Millions more people are expected to experience air travel, creating a need for more aviation employees. Not only is commercial growing Defense and Space segment of our business has nearly doubled in recent years. At Spirit, they're committed to sustainability. Their innovation and collaboration lead the way towards a better world. They take responsibility for their impact on the environment and communities.
Advice from Brice Helton
- Get Involved: “People always tell you in school to get involved. And it’s kind of like, yeah, sure, okay. “I’ve talked with people at Spirit and now I feel like I really understand why getting involved is important. It’s not all about doing activities for the sake of them looking good on your resume.
- Don't Be Afraid to Reach Out: “Don’t be afraid to reach out.
- Embrace New Experiences: If you met me in high school, you wouldn’t have caught me dead in front of a group,” he laughs. “I run cross country, and I used to only give campus tours at my school for new cross country recruits that came in. But then I was encouraged to give tours for the university, so I decided to give it a shot.
- Value Supportive People: Working with people who want to help you learn, advance and grow can make all the difference in an internship program. “I really enjoyed my experience.
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