Applied online for an October start and received an interview call within a week. The process involved the same regular rounds described on Glassdoor:

• HR Round (2nd week of October): One-way video interview with the same 5 questions.
• HackerRank Coding (The week after): Choose from 5 languages; I selected C/C++ and MATLAB.
  • 22 MATLAB questions: Multiple choice (single and multiple correct answers), some were 'guess the output' or 'complete the code' types, and some general, simple MATLAB.
  • 6 C++ similar questions.
  • 2 C++ coding questions: Very simple if you know inheritance and pointers.

Basic knowledge of MATLAB should be fine. I would suggest reading about gca, gcf, and matrix indexing (I received a question about the output of A(B>0) where A and B were matrices).

For C++, you should know it completely, from basic function overloading to pointer class inheritance and exception handling. Reading the Cplusplus.com tutorial is more than enough.

The test doesn't test proficiency in C++ or MATLAB. Obviously, having good proficiency in 2 of the 5 languages is best, but it's not required for this test. The test is designed to assess your knowledge.

Received the next round email within a week.

• Phone Interview with Codeshare by HackerRank (mid-November): This, I would say, was a more difficult round. I prepared well for it. You have to schedule an interview, after which you will receive an email detailing the process. It's more of a syllabus you should prepare for, with 5 sections: one expertise area, programming concepts, 2 languages, and math.

The interviewer asked my preference at the start. I was interviewed in the following order: Math (Calculus: around 10 questions), Programming Concepts (4 questions), C/C++ (around 12-15 questions including sub-questions), MATLAB (5 questions), and finally Control Systems (10 questions). Total time taken: 50 minutes. Total questions: around 40-42.

The interviewer wanted to know my thought process.

Math: I answered everything correctly with correct explanations; it was very easy.

Programming Concepts: I also answered these correctly, but on one question, I presented a different approach than what the interviewer was looking for. He gave me a hint, and I then provided the correct answer.

C/C++: This was a little difficult for me as I don't use it much. I was asked whether code would compile, and why or why not. If it compiled, I had to provide the output. This applied to every code snippet he displayed, which I believe were 5 in total. The code involved pointers, function overloading with dynamic memory, classes, and pointers to base classes with dynamic memory. (A friend in computer science, who is good in his field, said these were difficult questions even for him). I answered a lot of them correctly. He provided hints in some places, but only when he wanted a more in-depth view of my answer.

MATLAB: Very simple, same questions as described previously.

Control Systems: This is where I think I was rejected. None of the questions were the same as those described here, nor had they been asked by the seniors at my university previously. I answered one question completely wrong (though it was an easy one) and in another, I admitted I forgot the concept. By this time, I was a bit exhausted by his rapid-fire questioning, and the question I answered incorrectly took its toll. I fumbled a bit on the remaining 3-4 questions, but my answers were correct.

Now, my calculated accuracy after the interview was over 90%. Even then, I was rejected within three days, in the same impersonal way the interview proceeded. My status was updated on the website. If you are a candidate who considers Mathworks your dream company, you can skip to the interview questions, as the following is my personal opinion about the company.

Given my accuracy, if this company is rejecting me for an internship position, I see only two possible scenarios:

1. The company wants an extraordinary candidate who is a genius, per se. If this is the case, Mathworks is a highly underpaid place to work, given that other software companies offer significantly more while asking for slightly less in terms of expertise areas. According to Glassdoor, interns are paid around $30/hr and full-time employees $80-90k.

2. The second scenario I believe is more probable; I will explain why. These people only hire through referrals and do not care about talent. This is due to two reasons I encountered: (i) I had a senior whose knowledge, let's say, was not up to the mark for a graduate student, but they had a very good referral. This person is now working there as a full-time employee. (ii) These people don't need to care about talent as they cover 99% of the market because they have no competition. Every university and research institute uses their products. So, who cares? If you use toolboxes in MATLAB, you may note that not all of the products are that good.

Then again, these are my personal opinions based on my experience and in no way am I writing this to harm the company's interests.

Math Questions:

• Matrix identities
• Inverse of a matrix
• Vector manipulation
• Limits (approximately 4 questions). Had to explain all the basics.
• Some other linear algebra questions which I don't remember.

Control Systems:

• Explain stability in the discrete plane? (Answered with unit circle and z-plane concept, etc.)
  • Follow-up question: Can you explain how to go from the s-plane to the z-plane?
• Rank of a matrix
• Controllability, Observability
• Given a 2nd order transfer function, find the natural frequency and damping ratio? (Messed up on the natural frequency somehow.)
• Explain Lyapunov stability. (Blabbered a little because I was thinking of the last question.)
• Why do we use negative feedback?

Two more questions were there which I cannot recall now.