A Google technical recruiter found my resume on LinkedIn and asked if I were looking for new employment opportunities. After speaking with her and a second engineering recruiter about where I am living, what I am doing, etc., we set up a phone interview with an Optical Engineer in the group.

Within 30 seconds, she jumped right into asking technical details about my work and what I had done on a particular project. She proceeded to ask about my optical modeling experience and how I would model certain problems within that project. She eventually asked textbook-oriented questions about Young's double-slit experiment, the difference between two radiometry terms, and how I would model the human eye in software.

I did not think I performed well on this interview but surprisingly got myself a second phone screening, this time with a computer programmer. He asked me about my work (not the same projects as the first interviewer), how I would hypothetically deal with eye-tracking issues in mobile devices, and if I knew anything about diffractive optics. Since I did not, we were done. I felt good about how this interview went.

Both interviews went into textbook and not-so-textbook oriented technical topics within 30 seconds. Both interviews lasted exactly 30 minutes with less than 5 minutes to ask my own questions.

Although I did not get rejected from Google, I am on hold and they may revisit my application within 6-12 months. Unfortunately, that does not help my job search right now.

What is the difference between luminance and illuminance?

What happens when you change the size of the slits in Young's double-slit experiment? What happens if you move them closer or further apart? What happens if you have 3 or 5 slits instead of just 2 slits?