Applied online and then soon received an email from a recruiter for a short phone interview.

The phone interview took about 20 minutes, and the recruiter asked about my PhD research project and then went over the basic requirements for this position.

She then set up another phone interview with a manager who called me a couple of days later to ask about my PhD research in more detail as well as my experience building CVD reactors and then described the position further (typical hours, occasional travel, etc.).

They invited me to an onsite interview event right afterward the phone interview.

The onsite interview event was actually fun. We had about 10 candidates all applying for the same type of position (apparently there were more than 10 openings for Product Engineer, so we weren't really competing).

The event started off with an afternoon networking event where we got to know the various managers and employees in a casual setting.

The following day involved:

• A 25-minute presentation
• Casual group lunch
• A one-hour lab tour (very nice cleanrooms)
• Two 30-minute interviews with two to three managers each

Everyone was very friendly and relaxed from what I perceived. There were a couple of challenging questions during the interviews, but overall the interviews were pretty laid back.

The recruiter called me the following Monday with an offer. The entire interview process was very fast and efficient.

Tell me about a challenge you encountered in your research and how you addressed the challenge.

If your manager gives you a challenging project that you couldn't solve in six months, what would you do?