I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Snap (Los Angeles, CA) in Feb 2022
Interview
Consisted of a recruiter screen, one 1:1 technical interview with a lead engineer, and an "on-site" (remote) vidcon panel with five 1:1 sessions with a hiring manager and four cross-functional team members (ME, EE, ID).
The overall process took 12.5 weeks, from application to final interview round. This involved 7 weeks between the initial recruiter screening and the first interview, which only happened after pinging the recruiter to remind them to schedule it.
It took 3 more weeks to get the panel on-site together. The discussions flowed well and questions covered many technical and behavioral topics, including very specific design issues related to challenges encountered in their Spectacles glasses, which seemed bordering on "doing work for free" (illegal). The questions should be changedto be more generalized.
Most of the interviewers are early to early-mid career, and have worked at Snap for a large portion of their careers so far, so don't have a wide amount of experience in product development, or in interviewing skills. They might want to pre-plan and coordinate their interview agendas for topics, style, and coverage of a candidate's prior projects and skills, which is what I've experienced with other tech companies.
The overall hardware development team is relatively small, and the problems facing them are extremely difficult and time-consuming. Combined with big competition in the AR space, it's unclear if they'll be able to compete and launch viable products without growing.
Feedback from the recruiting team was within two days. They had other candidates who were a better fit for the role.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do you do dimensional tolerance analysis?
Draw a stress-strain curve and describe it.
How do you improve stiffness in these glasses?
How do you do root cause analysis, such as in this broken hinge on the glasses?
How do you diagnose the cohesion/adhesion of this joint on the glasses?
What are Cp and Cpk?
How do you do root cause analysis and corrective action for this plastic part that breaks?
What kind of materials and coatings would be used for this battery contact on the glasses?
What manufacturing processes do you know the best/least?
How do you test products?
How would you design the PCB to fit through this small hinge on the glasses?
How do you ensure the position of these two cameras on the glasses?
How do you select connectors and cables to go board-to-board?
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Snap (Santa Monica, CA) in Apr 2021
Interview
Phone screen with HR and then video interview with hiring manager. Hiring manager showed a product asking how would you manufacture it. I received a response next day that I was “not the perfect candidate”. I have experience in designing for manufacturing but it seems like they’re really looking for someone who checks all the boxes in the job description, hence why they say the “perfect candidate”.