Applications Support Engineer Interview Experience - Natick, Massachusetts
March 1, 2013
Positive ExperienceNo Offer
Process
I met the recruiter at a college career fair. I was interested because I am pursuing a graduate degree (PhD), and I believe that's what they're mainly looking for to fill these positions.
Next, I had a very short phone call with an HR person who asked some behavioral questions. I think they were, "Tell me about a time when you worked on a team?"
They asked me to pick from a number of interview tracks: Signal Processing, Computer Science, Controls, Math, and Matlab. I realize now that I misunderstood the question; what they basically have are one of two tracks: engineering or computer science.
Then, I had a technical phone interview that lasted about 45 minutes. It didn't go too well since I had selected the Computer Science track, although my PhD is in Engineering. The interviewer let me know which section each batch of questions was from. Most of what was asked is below:
General Programming
- What is Object-Oriented Programming?
- What are the benefits of inheritance?
- What is the difference between global and local scope?
- Why would using global variables be a bad practice?
- What are pointers? What is the danger of using a pointer?
- What is the worst-case complexity for searching through a linked list?
- What is multithreading?
C Programming
- What is the difference between & and * pointers?
- What does #include <stdio.h> mean?
- What is the difference between
const x = 100;and#define x 100? - How can you give a data type a new name?
- What is a null pointer? How would it be used?
- What is the
mallocfunction?
Matlab
- What is the difference between
a*banda.*b? - How do you find the transpose?
- Given A, B, and C, how would you plot A vs. C and B vs. C on the same plot?
- How do you concatenate strings?
- What is the difference between scripts and functions?
- How do you open
results.mat? - How do you add a folder to the Matlab directory?
- How do you store variables of different data types in the same variable?
- What is a persistent variable?
- What is a
.mexfile?
Java & Ruby
- What is the difference between JRE and JDK?
- What is an abstract class?
- What does
A || Bmean? - What happens if you write
A || == B? - What is the difference between Rails and Ruby?
- What is a Rake function?
(We stopped asking questions because the interviewer realized this wasn't my chosen track.)
Questions
If you have alpha in the workspace and alpha in the current directory, which alpha will be called?
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 170 interview experiences for the MathWorks Applications Support Engineer role in Natick, Massachusetts.
Success Rate
24%
Pass Rate
MathWorks's interview process for their Applications Support Engineer roles in Natick, Massachusetts is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Positive56%
Neutral30%
Negative14%
Candidates reported having very good feelings for MathWorks's Applications Support Engineer interview process in Natick, Massachusetts.
MathWorks Work Experiences
5.0
Fantastic company with a very good working environment
Applications Support Engineer • Current Employee
Natick, Massachusetts, United States
September 21, 2020
Pros: Work-life balance, private office space, company culture.
Cons: No significant cons so far.
3.0
Has its advantages, but certainly in need of improvement
Applications Support Engineer • Current Employee
Natick, Massachusetts, United States
May 23, 2015
Pros: Great, intelligent people to work with.
Decent work-life balance (nice to have a gym on campus, etc.).
The company feels "young," which is nice for new graduates.
Cons: - Low pay (we shouldn't have to rely on a stakeholder bonus to get a halfway decent salary)
- Management is in general pretty awful
- Too much emphasis on procedures and bureaucracy
- Difficult to get promoted (not based on merit – my manager even told me I just haven't been here long enough)
3.0
Engineering Development Group
Applications Support Engineer • Former Employee
Natick, Massachusetts, United States
October 13, 2020
Pros: MathWorkers are friendly people and outstanding engineers.
You will learn a lot working here, and many of your coworkers will become friends.
Cons: The MathWorks is a great company, but the Engineering Development Group is seriously flawed. These cons apply only to EDG and not MathWorks overall.
In EDG, you are in a technical support role. On a typical day, you log in to the phone queue at 8:30 am sharp. You can't sign off until 5:30 pm. Sometimes your manager will listen to your calls. You have a scheduled lunch hour. You message your coworkers to tell them you are going to the bathroom. About once a month, you get a late shift, meaning you answer calls until 8 pm. None of this is explained during the recruitment process.
Each day, you are either "on support" or not. You will quickly grow very tired of technical support, and time away from it is precious. There is a shadow economy where engineers swap shifts so that they can focus on professional development or take a bit of personal time.
When you are in EDG, you are laser-focused on transferring out, which often happens after a year or more. Transferring entails applying for any of the non-EDG openings that are listed on the MathWorks careers site. You have to interview for a permanent role, and you will compete with both internal and external candidates.
Your EDG manager gives final approval on your transfer. Occasionally, a hiring manager will make a job offer that is shot down by an EDG manager. Engineers feel pressured to take any opportunity that presents itself because they are afraid of being forced out by management and because they have been exhausted by the tech support schedule.
EDG engineers are too talented to sit this low on the totem pole. They need to be given the whole story before they join.
- 5.0Fantastic company with a very good working environmentApplications Support Engineer • Current EmployeeNatick, Massachusetts, United StatesSeptember 21, 2020Pros: Work-life balance, private office space, company culture.Cons: No significant cons so far.
- 3.0Has its advantages, but certainly in need of improvementApplications Support Engineer • Current EmployeeNatick, Massachusetts, United StatesMay 23, 2015Pros: Great, intelligent people to work with. Decent work-life balance (nice to have a gym on campus, etc.). The company feels "young," which is nice for new graduates.Cons: - Low pay (we shouldn't have to rely on a stakeholder bonus to get a halfway decent salary) - Management is in general pretty awful - Too much emphasis on procedures and bureaucracy - Difficult to get promoted (not based on merit – my manager even told me I just haven't been here long enough)
- 3.0Engineering Development GroupApplications Support Engineer • Former EmployeeNatick, Massachusetts, United StatesOctober 13, 2020Pros: MathWorkers are friendly people and outstanding engineers. You will learn a lot working here, and many of your coworkers will become friends.Cons: The MathWorks is a great company, but the Engineering Development Group is seriously flawed. These cons apply only to EDG and not MathWorks overall. In EDG, you are in a technical support role. On a typical day, you log in to the phone queue at 8:30 am sharp. You can't sign off until 5:30 pm. Sometimes your manager will listen to your calls. You have a scheduled lunch hour. You message your coworkers to tell them you are going to the bathroom. About once a month, you get a late shift, meaning you answer calls until 8 pm. None of this is explained during the recruitment process. Each day, you are either "on support" or not. You will quickly grow very tired of technical support, and time away from it is precious. There is a shadow economy where engineers swap shifts so that they can focus on professional development or take a bit of personal time. When you are in EDG, you are laser-focused on transferring out, which often happens after a year or more. Transferring entails applying for any of the non-EDG openings that are listed on the MathWorks careers site. You have to interview for a permanent role, and you will compete with both internal and external candidates. Your EDG manager gives final approval on your transfer. Occasionally, a hiring manager will make a job offer that is shot down by an EDG manager. Engineers feel pressured to take any opportunity that presents itself because they are afraid of being forced out by management and because they have been exhausted by the tech support schedule. EDG engineers are too talented to sit this low on the totem pole. They need to be given the whole story before they join.
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