International Rectifier Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Mar 2009 in Temecula, CA (took 2 days)

Met with the hiring manager in at IRF's Temecula site (a phone conversation of approximately 90 minutes had preceded, by a week or so, the on-site visit).

Pretty standard technical/engineering interview - met with some of the technical staff, the hiring manager, and his department manager. The discussions covered my past experiences (what types of work I had done, what problems or issues were faced, and how they were resolved), and some probing of my knowledge of their technology and product line - mainly, what is a HEXFET, how might it be different than a typical FET, and what are the possible advantages of this geometry for the intended application (high power and high current). The last point was fairly easy to describe in general (lower channel resistance and more immunity to punch-through effects), since I had taken the time to read a bit about HEXFETS (including one of the original patents!) ahead of time.

Each of the interview team talked about the work each of them did, day to day, and week to week.

The hiring manager did ask how I might feel about working for someone younger than me (he was probably 5-7 years younger). For me, that's not an issue (I told him that), but an interesting question.

Overall, the folks there were pretty friendly and well-organized; it was a worthwhile exploratory visit, though I didn't receive an offer. I think they may have been hoping to find someone local (I was not).

One final note: When I submitted my trip expense report - mainly, rental car (their usual vendor was booked; they used another with whom they did NOT have direct billing), (local) airport parking, and meals, I did have to chase down the repayment, and was finally paid with a series of Vanilla Visa cards whose sum total was ALMOST (they were on the low side) of the expense report total. Kind of an odd way to do it - especially since Vanilla Visa cards cannot be deposited into a bank account - you HAVE to use them at merchants, and if you only use part of a card, you have to keep track of how much is remaining. If you're buying something that costs more than the amount remaining, you have to ask the merchant to enter only the amount remaining, and then pay for the remainder another way. MAJOR headache. STAY AWAY from Vanilla Visa cards at all costs!