I applied online. I interviewed at Allen Control Systems in Jun 2026
Interview
The first call was a recruiter screen. The recruiter was very friendly, professional, and willing to answer questions about the role and company.
The next round was a 15-min live-coding interview. Overall, the technical interview felt unusually rushed. The problem itself was a very common and famous medium-difficulty leetcode question with minor modifications. It felt more like a speed test than a meaningful technical evaluation.
The interviewer joined late, spent part of the limited time on setup and explanation, and then explained a specific and inefficient approach they wanted me to use. The expectation seemed to be that I should follow that exact approach and complete the implementation within only a few minutes. During the coding portion, there was little to no discussion, guidance, or engagement.
The most disappointing part was the communication style. Once time ran out, the interviewer became dismissive and made comments along the lines of me not following what they wanted, not being capable of the role, and implying that I must have seen the question before. The tone felt unnecessarily disrespectful and unprofessional.
As professional engineers and candidates, we completely understand that interviews might not be easy, and not every interview will go well. However, candidates still deserve a professional and respectful environment where both sides can fairly evaluate fit. This experience made me question the team culture and whether this would be a healthy environment to work in.
I would advise future candidates to be cautious, especially if respectful communication and a collaborative engineering culture are important to you.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Allen Control Systems in Jun 2026
Interview
I had an initial phone screen with a recruiter, followed by a 15-minute coding interview with an engineer. Unfortunately, I experienced technical issues at the start, which significantly reduced the already-short time available to solve the problem.
The question was essentially LC 647, with a small twist. I initially described an optimized approach, but the interviewer seemed dismissive of it and suggested I just use a brute-force solution instead, saying they cared more that it worked than that it was optimized. Given the limited time, I quickly wrote a solution and ran a few tests, but there was still a bug when time was called.
After the interview, I revisited the problem and confirmed that my original optimized approach was valid. The issue in my implementation came down to a small conditional bug. That said, my concern is less about the technical outcome and more about the interviewer's tone and professionalism.
Throughout the short interview, the interviewer made several dismissive comments. At the end, after asking how I felt about my solution, he remarked that it was "more than a simple bug" away from working and said that after conducting "over 400 interviews," he knew I did not meet their bar. The call then ended abruptly.
After working at several top-tech companies, I understand not every interview results in moving forward, However, even when a candidate does not pass, I would expect the process to remain respectful and constructive. Based on my experience, I would be cautious unless you are comfortable with a very direct, abrasive interview style. This likely mirrors their day-to-day and would be a draining place to work.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given an input string, find all unique palindromes within it.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Allen Control Systems (Austin, TX)
Interview
Wasn’t a great experience at all. I was asked a math question, but the interviewer made a lot of assumptions before I had the chance to fully explain my approach.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The question was essentially a derivative dot product type question