Garmin Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
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Updated Jan 14, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 22 ratings 
“Average” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 22 ratings
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| 1–10 of 22 Garmin Interviews | Sort by |
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted Jan 14, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2012 in Kansas City, MO (took a day)
I had three interviews with Garmin for three different positions in the company. Each interview consisted of questions asking me what I was looking for in a company, a set of technical questions (what is a pointer, etc.), and a software engineering puzzle I had to solve. Know your general terminology and be good at solving puzzles and you'll be set.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted Nov 29, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 in Overland Park, KS (took 1+ week)
The phone interview was basically by HR. She asked me the basic HR questions. Got an email inviting for an onsite interview. They took care of all the accommodation. The same HR asked the same questions once again and if there was a change in compensation requirements. Later it was a group interview where 2 team leads interviewed me with basic C questions.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted Aug 17, 2011 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Jul 2011 in Olathe, KS (took 3 weeks)
To start off, I am a fresh college graduate (B.S.) in computer science and this was my first corporate interview ever. I simply applied on their website and was contacted in about a week.
I received a call from HR to kick off the process. It was about 1 hour long and mostly non-technical. A few simple technical questions like 'What is function overloading? overriding? What is a semaphore?', etc. but that was it. The usual questions were more like 'Describe your resume experiences. What is your favorite programming language?' etc. After that I was contacted in a few business days (less than a week) for an on site interview scheduled for 2 weeks later. They flew me in and paid for the rental car and hotel. The on site interview was actually a mini-interview to start, 4 1-hour interviews, and a free lunch intermission tour of the campus and offices. The mini-interview was just a recap of the previous HR interview with an HR representative. Then I had a 1:1 interview where I was asked to solve a problem with the interviewer. Given a general Image View that can zoom, pan, scroll, etc. write an algorithm that can determine the absolute image coordinates of a user click even if they have zoomed in and/or scrolled. It was an interesting problem and I had a semi-working solution by the time the interview was over. Then I had a panel interview with 1 project manager and 2 team leaders. This was more laid back. We talked about the research I did in college and my opinions about different programming languages. The third interview was 1:1 and it was half technical. First I talked about major projects and challenges I had worked on and then the second half was rapid fire questions about C and a little object oriented stuff. Questions like: 'Write a routine to do an in order traversal of a binary tree (then do it without recursion). How would you set only 1 bit in a 32 bit value. What is the difference between big and little endian? Here are some common data structures, where would you normally see them and why? Explain negative runtime impacts caused by inheritance.' Then there was a free lunch tour with a regular employee. After that was my last 1:1 interview. There was a quick discussion and then all technical questions. I had teaching assistant experience on my resume and the interviewer asked me to teach him what a semaphore was. Then he showed me some C code and asked me what was wrong with it. Then finally he gave me a problem to solve in less than 10 minutes. The problem was to shuffle a deck of cards. I barely got a solution down that I explained while I was writing it. He was happy that I even finished a solution even though it was hideously inefficient. He was the only interviewer to ask me to see the self coding example that I was told to bring.
The interviewers were all pleasant and willing to work with me when I stumbled through some of the questions. There were a few tricky ones that I definitely was not able to answer right off the top of my head. One last note for what it's worth, all of my interviewers were white males with an average age probably in the mid to late twenties though there were a couple in their late thirties for sure. Overall the interviews were pretty simple and not very stressful.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
I tried to negotiate a higher starting salary and they were not very receptive to it at all. I was ignored for about a week and when I was finally contacted (after leaving a few messages to different people) I was simply told that they wanted to keep a consistent hiring salary and that none of my team leaders wanted to compromise on that. That said, I did receive a higher salary offer than I expected and I am happy with it.
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview, a Skills Test and a Drug Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted Jun 26, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2009 (took 3 weeks)
It is a very standard interview, questions were based on
1. previous experience and skill sets required on the job
2. few basic data structure based questions
3. Had a panel of three technical interviewers and a HR interview.
Technical Interview is a cake walk, if you would have prepared for it. Basic interview questions as would be asked on any embedded software interview. Like what is stack, heap, volatile / static variables, DMA and few questions on the hardware debuggers. They would ask for you bring a software program and explain it.
HR interview seemed to be an important one. Looking for service mentality. The challenges faced in your work environment and how you handle it.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Presentation.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted May 3, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Apr 2011 (took 2 months)
Interviewed with HR representative in February over the phone, just a behavioral interview. Was told that the hiring manager would be contacting me in a week. Four weeks and 4 emails later, I was finally contacted. A couple of days later I was given a technical interview, and again was told I would hear something within a week or two. Another 4 weeks, 4 emails, and a phone call later, the HR rep finally emailed me to tell me that I was not accepted. Aside from the timing issues, everyone that I dealt with was very friendly and welcoming.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted Sep 11, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Jun 2010 in Olathe, KS (took a day)
Initial contact was made by submitting my resume on the Garmin.com careers site. I submitted for two different positions. I was then contacted for a phone interview within a week (they were hiring for several positions at the time). After the phone screening, I was contacted a few days later to request an in person interview. I already had a planned trip to the area, so they did not offer to compensate me for travel for the interview.
My on-site interview began with basic HR and personality questions with the recruiter. They gave me a brief tour of the site and provided lunch. After lunch I was taken to a conference room where I was interviewed by team leads for three different positions. Two of the interviews involved skills tests in programming.
The culture was very relaxed. Most employees were wearing jeans and many even shorts and flip-flops. The people interviewing me took their work very seriously, but were kind and friendly. They gave me the opportunity to ask any questions I had.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
They were not able to meet my desired salary amount, but offered a sign-on bonus to help cover moving expenses, etc. I asked further about covering actual moving costs, or additional sign-on amounts and was offered an additional $1000 which was helpful considering the ~40% income tax on the bonus! I did have to go back and forth with them a couple of times to get that, and I just had to figure out what I needed to cover my transition and transfer for my family.
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted Aug 16, 2010
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2009 (took 3 weeks)
HR phone screened at first; checked technical & personality skills and experiences. On-site consisted of an interview with HR, then a group interview with several managers. Detailed questions on my previous experiences; was asked for how I would solve problems in detail. Asked for specific examples of how I solved engineering challenges in the past
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
Offer was fair; did not negotiate much.
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview, a Presentation and a Drug Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted Jul 19, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Jul 2008 in Olathe, KS (took 2 days)
My first contact was by email to set up a phone interview. The phone interview was just your standard HR personality and basic background interview. There were questions like "Describe a time when you had a conflict at work and how it was resolved". The interviewer was very nice and personable. The next interview was on site with two managers from the department I was applying for. There was nothing exceptional about the interview. They asked a few technical questions but were prefaced with questions that would pinpoint what I was familiar with. For example, they asked if I was familiar with sql and when I said not too much, they said OK and left it alone. However, when they asked about C++, I said I was proficient and they went on to ask me more detailed questions about C++.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Drug Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted Jul 7, 2010
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jun 2010 in Olathe, KS (took a day)
I had the opportunity to interview with Garmin in Olathe, KS a couple of weeks ago. The first interview was with HR and the interviewer asked basic personality questions such as describe 3 major lifetime achievements, describe your ideal workplace, etc. It was a little more in depth than the 30 minute phone screen. I was told I would have 4 technical interviews with different managers throughout the day, lunch, and a tour.
It started out pretty well I thought. During the first 2 interviews, I was asked intermediate questions about C++ and Java, my work experience and asked to solve some problems. One question was to describe the difference in an STL string and a Java String. I didn’t do very well on the problem solving. My nerves got the better of me and I just couldn’t think clearly in that high pressure situation. I do better taking a problem to my desk and working through it in silence. Something I need to work on for future interviews… but anyway…
There wasn’t a single question on design patterns, which every good programmer should be familiar with. And nobody asked to see my code which they told me to bring.
The 3rd interview is what got me. The interviewer was a low level programmer, ( OS, device driver level ) guy, and he began asking me bit twiddling questions. When I told him those are things I studied for certifications years ago, but nothing practical I have used in my over 9 years of experience, he seemed annoyed. The position was for an application programmer, so I didn’t review this kind of low level programming questions. “I know how to build houses, not bricks and nails.” That’s what I should have told him, but didn’t. Then he asked me to implement a bubble sort algorithm on paper while he’s looking over my shoulder. Again, I just couldn’t do it. Sure, I know what a bubble sort is and yes I have used it. But in practice, I have never had to implement one. There is already a good implementation in every major language, so why should I. I build houses. ( which is what the position was for ) If I had been prepared for this sort of questioning or just graduated from college, I could have answered these questions without any problem. ( I didn’t tell him any of this, but it’s what I was thinking. ) So the interviewer kindly told me the interview process was over and escorted me to the door. I said no problem.
This is a very green group of people. All the interviewers, who were mostly managers, were under 30. They definitely value academic knowledge over years of practical real-world experience. And it seems they expect you to know about everything, rather than focusing on your skills and experience you can bring to the company. If you just graduated college, this might be a good place for you, but if you have real experience I wouldn’t bother.
Now here is the real question. There was no technical phone interview. So why did they fly me out to Kansas when they are clearly looking for a certain type of person. Yeah, they paid for my expenses but I wasted 2 of my vacation days for nothing. I could have saved us both some time and money if I knew up front what they were specifically looking for. It seems very odd to me. Usually a company will fly you out to headquarters when they are really serious about hiring you. The only thing that comes to mind is it’s a big tax write off. Makes you wonder.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Garmin
Posted Jun 20, 2010
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Mar 2010 (took a day)
Attended job fair and was contacted by HR recruiter a few weeks later.
The HR recruiter setup an hour long phone interview, mostly HR questions, salary history, behavioral questions, personality questions, etc
On-site interview was setup for a week later. At on-site interview, met with 5 people. Engineers asked technical questions and programming and logic questions. Managers asked about work history and experience and described the company and answers my questions. HR asked basic HR stuff.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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