Applied online, the recruiter called me for a phone interview, it took 15 minutes and she told me that the team that is hiring is going to be excited about it...etc. and told me that I should do a second phone interview with hiring manager. It took a week or so before the second interview. The second interview with hiring manager took less than 5 minutes (yes, around 5 minutes!!), I sent my resume and 2-3 pages slide before the second interview. He (hiring manager) is from the same institute I am working at and with some similarities in research, he exactly knew what kind of graduate/postdoc work that I dealt with and how it can be fit for the position. He also briefly explained his group and where I travel if the work needed me to. Sounded very positive overall!! That is why it took 5 minutes for the phone interview. I went for the onsite interview after about a month, the hiring manager that called me was not within the hiring team. (If he is hiring, why was he not there ;( ) It was a cluster hire, so overall it doesn't seem very important how much potential you as an individual have. But whether you can do mundane work and fit in the position and do what you told. Literally, any STEM PhD with some good communication skills can fit these criteria. I understood through the communication with other candidates that everyone has different backgrounds and their level of research experience can vary a lot. I mean Ph.D. from a low tier school in the middle of nowhere to pretty decent level of graduate research experience and good communication skills. If you have been done PhD in engineering or STEM as a whole, and have some good background (published several 1st author papers, gave several oral presentations in national conferences, did time sensitive research work...etc), it is easy to know what level of research another guy have just by talking for 10-15 minutes. So during this hiring event, there were plenty of time for candidates to talk to each other. Not everyone is so competitive or I don't remember anyone from any big name schools. The presentation was 30 minutes with 7-8 hiring managers and some engineers in the company, at the 29th minute, the recruiter came in to kick me out so they can go with the next candidate's presentation. After the cluster presentations one after another, then the 7-8 hiring managers pick their likes and interview the candidates in two 30 minute sessions. At lunchtime, there was some time to socialize. Overall, the interview is nice, recruiters and hiring managers are nice.