I applied in-person. I interviewed at IBM in Sep 2017
Interview
First the interviewer described the different subdivisions that work on their z systems. Then we went over my resume and discussed my experiences with all of my past internships and projects. Finally he asked if I had any questions where I asked what a typical day is like and what are the typical career paths people take after a few years in this role.
I applied through college or university. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at IBM in Feb 2014
Interview
I met the manager of the team I interviewed for at a university career fair. I told him I was interested in working on processors, so he asked me some architecture questions about pipelines and cache memory. He gave me his email and told me which position to apply for online. I applied for the position, and sent him a follow up email thanking him that evening.
Within a few days he invited me up for a site visit and interview. When I went I was there for about five hours, and I talked to seven different people on the team. Not a lot of technical questions, they were mostly trying to get to know me, and see if I would be a good fit. They wanted me to ask them a lot of questions, and I wish I had prepared more of my own questions ahead of time.
The technical lead did ask me some digital logic and architecture questions, but nothing too bad. There was also an online test with some algebra and number pattern recognition questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Draw the basic layout of a microprocessor on the whiteboard.