Daktronics Hardware Design Engineer Interview

Interviewed Mar 2011 in Brookings, SD (took 6 weeks)

Applied for the position on the company website and had a pre-screening phone interview with HR within 2 weeks. The HR person was very pleasant and the questions were the standard set of pre-screen questions. Asked me about what kind of projects I've worked on and had a few specific questions about some of the items on my resume. Also asked about my desired salary. After another week or two, I had a group panel phone interview with the same HR person and 3 of the company engineers related to the position I was interviewing for. They asked more specific questions about the projects listed on my resume, aiming to get at my experience with MCUs and FPGAs. Then after another couple of weeks, they flew me out for an in-person interview at the company's headquarters. This interview consisted of a tour of the town, a breakfast and lunch 1:1 interview with one of the engineers from the phone panel interview, 1:1 interview from the two other engineers on the phone panel, and a tour of the facilities. It ended with a phone interview with the same HR person, who located at another location. Throughout, there weren't really any technical questions, just specific questions about the projects I had listed on my resume. The offer came as a phone call with the HR person and one of the engineers who interview me on the phone. Overall, the company seems like a great place to work, although they won't be paying you top salary because of their location. My asking salary was far greater than what they wanted to pay, and I wasn't told this until the offer was presented. The work environment is setup as one giant room subdivided using cubicles. They have a cafe on-site and their manufacturing is done on-site as well. They even have a PCB subsidiary company which engineers can use to produce prototype boards.