I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at USRA (Mountain View, CA) in Oct 2020
Interview
During my interview, I had to prepare a scientific presentation related to my latests research that was also strongly overlapping with the role. After that I had a discussion with the technical team about the presentation and general questions were asked related to other scientific achievements. I had to demonstrate technical knowledge in the area of interest.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Have you considered using other distribution of noise?
First, they were unprepared. It took them half an hour hour to set up a webex line with 3 participants. I had some relevant work background in the field they were hiring for. So, I explained my work background and they asked me possible ways to improve the airport throughput... I had worked on the sample airport before, so I explained through my previous findings. The interview took a different turn after I explained them why a method they proposed during the interview wouldn't make sense from the airline revenue management perspective. They asked some more specific skill based questions and one interviewer started to ask questions more relevant to his graduate work and less relevant to my graduate work. He solved a simple problem on a simple graph compared to the graph I had in my mind. He asked me solution complexity versus the input size. It differs based on what network you solve it for. He didn't like my answer and then started to prove that I had no idea of what I was doing when I was doing my graduate work. It was overly aggressive and childish. I hung up after enduring that ridicule for 7-8 mins.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What software tools have you used. Can you process terrabytes level of data? Have you used matlab?