I started the interview process on November 2019. I had 3 interviews in total:

The first one was the online assessment, with pre-recorded questions and two programming questions, one in C and the other one on VHDL.

The second one was the interview with the hiring manager, which lasted for 1 hour and asked general questions, regarding the projects on my CV and how motivated I was for that position. This interview went well, so I was given a final interview, which was fully technical and lasted for 3 hours, on Skype.

It was with three engineers, 2 of them responsible for the hardware part and 1 of them for the software part. The interview was not that hard, it was about the CPU architectures, details about forwarding units, hazard detection units, stalls, and the pipeline technique. Regarding the software part, there were questions about the code writing style, the differences between different programming languages, and the advantages of each. In general, the interview went well, and they looked very optimistic, and in the end, they said that they were going to give me feedback in two weeks.

After several days I got an automatic email from HR, which didn't say anything other than the usual rejection emails. No reason, no feedback, no explanation. That process took exactly 3 months and I was very disappointed by them. Not because they rejected me, of course there are other candidates who can give more than me for that position, but the way they behaved was not correct.

One other reason why I think I might be rejected (because now I can only assume) is also because of my citizenship. I needed a working visa sponsorship to work in the UK and I noticed that it was not so comfortable for them going through the visa process. After that I got an offer from an ARM alternative company and the process was very different and friendly. Currently, I work at that company and I feel very good there. Maybe Arm is not the best company to start your career with.

Pipeline, RISC-V, stalls, forwarding unit, hazard detection unit.