I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at McMaster-Carr (Chicago, IL) in Sep 2024
Interview
Applied through Handshake and made it to a phone screen with a recruiter for the Technology Development program. Mostly questions based from my resume and a series of behavioral questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you could do it again, what would you do differently.
3 out of my 4 interviews were pleasant. But my "Director Interview" was unprofessional and hurtful. The entire time, their company’s director spoke to me with an arrogant and condescending tone. He would ask rapid fire questions about technical aspects of the McMaster website and my past experiences. At times I would stumble on an answer or get stuck, and he would smirk at me as if he thought I was stupid.
He asked about some of my past experiences on my resume, and after I answered, he would go out of his way to mock and minimize my contributions. He'd follow up with, "so you JUST did " and "what is the technical complexity here?" with a smirk on his face.
It's hard to articulate his body language and mannerisms in writing, but I've never felt so disrespected in an interview before. Perhaps I didn't have the skill set that McMaster was looking for, but you can determine this politely without demeaning me. I took a vacation day and drove 150 miles for this interview; if I knew I'd be treated this way by their company's leadership, I would've cancelled.
Please keep these thoughts in mind when you determine if you'd like to interview with McMaster. All I can say is that I’m not surprised 50% of software engineers have a negative interview experience according to Glassdoor.
I applied online. I interviewed at McMaster-Carr (Elmhurst, IL) in Jan 2026
Interview
The entire process was initial recruiter screen, then share a project with recruiter, then a technical interview (though pure discussion not coding) with an engineer, and then a final full day of on site interviews. The impression I got culture wise is that it’s a good place to grow but a bit of a pressure cooker and you really always need to be on your a-game and show you have lots of drive otherwise you can get laid off. All the interviewers were nice, though it seems like the final day coding interview really harps on web-dev, so if you don’t have knowledge there it will probably not go super well.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell us about this project. How did you take ownership of it? What struggles did you have and how did you overcome them?
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at McMaster-Carr
Interview
interviewer was some random some guy with 4yr experience and is now apparently too good code now and goes between teams "guiding" them on what to do.
asked me some nonsenscial in-depth questions about field he didn't know anything about.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
how did you make decison X
why didnt you make it run even faster