This is for Sontek, a company under Xylem in San Diego. I applied online and was contacted within a couple of weeks of applying. I had 2 interviews, and it took 5 months to get hear back. The senior engineer, an older dude, sent me an email so I emailed him back about possible phone interview times. This was on a Wednesday, so I immediately emailed him back with some general times that I would be available. I also stated that I could specifically set aside time on Friday, which was 2 days after I sent my email. Unfortunately, I received an email later that day saying he would give me a call "tomorrow" on Thursday. Okay, whatever. This was merely the start of the train wreck. The actual phone interview wasn't bad. He mainly asked about things I put on the application and whether or not I was familiar with things like Lean Six Sigma, reading schematics, etc. Nothing too technical. He also asked me when I would be available for an in-person interview. Keep in mind that this phone interview was on Thursday. I specifically said that I would be available in the afternoon, say 1-4pm, but I could come in as early as 10am if necessary. The days that I said I would be available would begin with Tuesday, 5 days from the phone interview. Lo and behold, I get an email calendar invitation for an in person interview on Monday at 10am. Sigh. In my email reply, I said that I would be available starting on Tuesday like I stated during the phone interview. So, I get a reply with a calendar invitation for an interview on Tuesday. Okay. The in-person interview took an hour. The senior engineer that I spoke with on the phone was my main interviewer, with a younger engineer also there. They had me describe things about a somewhat complicated looking circuit diagram. I partially got the answer about FETs, but not fully. The senior engineer managed to totally butcher a question about SQL, which I had been well-versed in. He drew a row-based table instead of a column-based table, so I missed the question about SQL mainly because of his weird usage. He said they don't use SQL extensively, so it didn't matter that much. There was some small part about a low-pass filter, which was simple enough. Now, here's the part that had me just take a deep breath out of frustration. The first thing: I asked about how many people would I be expected to work with. Like, is there a team I'd be working in specifically in a clearly defined role? Would I be working on my own but responsible for completing things for many different people? The senior engineer went on some random tangent, like he did a few other times. It's like he heard a keyword and just answered without even considering the entire question. He said "You have to come into work every day, don't think you can just work from home and don't have to talk to anyone. You have to be in front of people" and so on. The next thing: the senior engineer asked me about the research group I was working in. How did I contact them and update information via documentation? Okay, so I emailed them if I needed something, I reported on my progress during weekly in-person meetings, and I uploaded informal reports onto our project's folder via google docs. But wait, how would I KNOW if someone got my email? How would I know that other people can see the page when I updated it? These were weird questions, but I just tried to answer it. I would be able to tell because I would be giving an update every week so that the team members and prof. can see the files that I upload. I would be able to talk to them in person if necessary. He just repeats the question in a slightly different way. Okay, I could log off of my google account and just view the link to see that it uploaded or updated. "But how do you KNOW??"  I just sighed and looked downward. This guy was terribly difficult, and I would be working under him if hired there. The last thing: I asked about their expectations of a new hire and how long it would take to get up to speed. Note that this was in front of the younger engineer. Before answering, he threw the question to me. Well, I expected 3-4 weeks of some amount of training for an entry-level position, where I could narrow down what skills I would need to hone the most. When he answered, he again just went on some tangent. "We expect you to come in on the first day and start working. You won't show up and just have someone hold your hand and get nothing done." He said a few more things but didn’t mention training. He had the younger engineer leave towards the end. Then the senior engineer goes on to basically say that they're shortstaffed and are willing to take on someone who'll work hard as long as they have the right background. What a 180 when a fellow employee isn't there..although not surprising at that point. I had a second interview with the general manager. Pretty straightforward behavioral interview and it took maybe 25 minutes.