Mechanical Engineer I Interview Questions
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Mechanical Engineer I interview questions shared by candidates
What has been your active role in the team process you're currently working with?
2 Answers
Ice cube melts in cup of water. What happens to the volume?
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The volume decreases. When water is frozen, the volume increases and density decreases. This is why it floats in liquid water. Less
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If the volume is referring to the cumulative volume of the ice cube and the water it is floating in, then as the ice cube melts the average density increases while the cumulative mass is conserved, thus leading to a decrease in volume. If the volume is referring to the volume of water, then it increases because the ice melts and increases the mass of water, which increases the volume of water. If the volume is actually referring to the water level, then it stays the same because the mass of the ice is supported by displacing a volume of water with the same mass. As the mass of the ice decreases it replaces the displaced water volume required with newly-melted water of the same mass. Less
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The volume stays the same. The cup did not change, therefore the volume shouldn't change. Less
If I gave you a pen what would you draw on this whiteboard.
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Blank stare, mouth opened thinking "is this real life"
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a smiley symbol with a clock outside of it
We were sitting in the third floor of a 16 floor building. After asking me about my experiences with working within a group the interviewer suddenly asked me, "How many pennies would it take to stack as high as this building?"
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It took me a second to realize that his apparent non sequitur was an attempt to evaluate my problem solving capabilities and methodology. Then, I estimated the width of a penny and the height of the floors within the building and talked through a calculation for him. Less
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It would be one penny less than those which would just exceed the height of the building when stacked above one another. Less
tell me about this project
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the explanation seemed to be not clear to the interviewer
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It's essential to demonstrate that you can really go deep... there are plenty of followup questions and (sometimes tangential) angles to explore. There's a lot of Mechanical Engineer experts who've worked at Applied Materials, who provide this sort of practice through mock interviews. There's a whole list of them curated on Prepfully. prepfully.com/practice-interviews Less
I was given a detailed engineering drawing and asked to see if anything was wrong, and to correct the irregularities if there were any. The hole callouts were a mess and there were mismatching fonts as well as redundant measurement callouts.
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Know your way around an engineering drawing
Can you describe the difference between working for an engineering consultancy business versus an engineering development business?
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Said I didn't know! After scanning Google, however, it seems that consultant engineers are more involved with high level systems design/theory. Development engineers are more involved with final implementation of designs. A consultant engineer interfaces with co-workers from various disciplines, whereas a development engineer may have a more narrow focus. More opportunities for learning and creativity as a consultant engineer, but less of an understanding about physically implementing a product. PLEASE perform your own search for more (and possibly more accurate) info. Less
