I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at TORC Robotics (Blacksburg, VA)
Interview
The process started with a phone screen, followed a week or two later by a “culture/fit” interview, and then a technical interview one week later. I think the total process took 3 weeks? Everyone was friendly, and the overall experience was positive. Technical screening involved a short live-coding exercise on Hackerrank. I’m giving a negative review because I felt that I did really well on the interview only to be rejected since apparently I did not indicate enough past usage of or willingness to use moving forward open-source tools and frameworks. I failed to mention that I’ve worked in secure labs for almost 20 years, and many of those frameworks were not available to me in a closed lab - but I didn’t think *not mentioning* that would sink my chances with them. Honestly, don’t waste your time with this company, you can do very well and they’ll still reject you. I was really stunned, actually. I’ve done far worse on other interviews, and yet still received offers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I was asked to implement a smart-pointer class with automatic garbage collection and reference counting.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at TORC Robotics (Blacksburg, VA) in Oct 2021
Interview
The process had 2 parts. The first part was a "Fit" interview, where two hiring managers interviewed me on things from my resume, why I want to join the company, my skill level in various aspects related to the role, such as applications/programming languages used, my school work, etc. This was more like the soft-skills/HR round, I suppose.
The second part consisted of two engineers in the same/related departments evaluating the technical aspects. They started out with systems modeling questions, and then switched to programming stuff. They mainly focused on C++, although they seemed pretty proficient in C++ and python (and probably others, too). Technical questions related to my previous work experience were interspersed in between.
Overall, the whole process was very positive. The managers were pretty clear on what they are looking for in terms of skill level in various aspects. The technical round (and even the first round, to a large extent) felt more like a discussion between 3 people who are interested in similar things than like a stressful interview. The two engineers in the tech panel even closed out the interview with some book recommendations for learning more about C++ and python.
And the recruiter I mainly worked with was also extremely helpful, always reachable (even during parts of the holiday season), and very positive.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
In a shared pointer in C++, how does one ensure that the pointer is not destroyed while it goes out of scope in some places, but is still being used in others?