This is the most weird "research lab" I have ever met. I went through a phone interview with the hiring manager first. The phone interview was mainly the introduction of the "research" group. Then followed by an onsite interview, which was the most weird part I have ever met for interviews in research labs. Firstly, I feel even the hiring manager knows little about the project that his group is doing. It seems that each group member is working on a different direction in a very small group (I guess only 3-4 people). Even the manager himself does not know the technical details of the project. I feel that the manager himself is at most an engineer, not a researcher. Second, most of the questions are unrelated to the project that the hiring group is doing. It seems that the interviewers are working in different fields. The most funny thing was that one of the interviewers asked me a lot of detailed C++ syntax questions and very unusual C syntax, even asked me to write those syntax on the white board. Even programmer interviews do not ask those silly questions, but this research lab does. So what if the candidate answers very well about those syntax questions? Can it show his/her ability of research and publishing papers? Finally, this research lab seems not to care publication at all. Neither the group is publishing good papers, nor they have had good publication. I carefully checked the publication history of all interviewers. Even the manager himself has really poor publication. People usually choose to work in a research lab because of at least one of the reasons: 1) cutting-edge projects and a group of smart people; 2) be able to publish good papers in top-tier conferences. I have seen neither of these. Therefore, I would rather go for a challenging development position in a good company.

The interview process is pretty normal and is pretty much like other research job interviews. But it was definitely boring. The whole group has very different background and mostly knows nothing of the candidate's research. I do not know how they chose the candidates and made the decision. The projects are related to OS compiler and storage but I did not find any experts there.