During a 25-minute phone interview with a contract recruiter, he asked simple, straightforward questions while typing my responses to forward to the hiring manager. The second interview with the hiring manager lasted 20 or so minutes. He posed a fictitious product and asked for my design process for the product. My response and interview were good enough to be asked back for an in-person interview. I met with 5 members of the team in a low-pressure environment. I was asked to describe my biggest, favorite, successful project from a design perspective. Another member posed a sample product spec and asked what type of design details I would implement. Another member asked some fundamental engineering principle questions, such as deflection of a beam (steel vs. alum) and mass suspended on a spring deflection questions.

I was asked to describe my biggest, favorite, successful project from a design perspective.

I was not prepared for this question.

I had lots of examples of projects and problems solved related to Lam's products, but the interviewer could not believe that the projects I was talking about were "my biggest" or "most successful."