Great people, great facility. The process was challenging but fair.
I'm giving them a negative review because they said they would pay for my onsite interview/trip to Maryland, but didn't. I've contacted their HR several times too. Be careful if they make you pay out of pocket to get yourself over there. I barely could afford it and then they burned me.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A question about queues.
A question about bit manipulation.
Lots of questions about personal projects, challenges, and your step by step solutions.
I applied online. I interviewed at Forterra (Clarksburg, MD) in Mar 2022
Interview
The good part:
The process started from them emailed me that there will be a zoom interview with 2 of the team member and then once I completed the interview it seems they are interested in my work and about me. In the following week, I received again another email from them that I will have to visit the Maryland facility to attend an in-person interview.
Where Civility ends and inhuman behaviors begin:
So I got an email back again from them early that week to select a date and time for my in-person interview at their facility and I emailed back with some options for the next week as my availability. I chose this time since I will have to take a day off from my current employer in advance. I also clearly mentioned to them that I love in another state and I will be traveling around 180 miles to reach for my interview. The next day I received an email back from them that I will have to be in their facility on the last day of the week at a certain time. This is early but it is okay for me since I was able to get the day off. So I decided to go and emailed back stating the time again to the email just to confirm. I do not know what happened but I did not receive any confirmation email again in the next 2 days.
On the interview day, I started early since I have to travel quite a distance. Once I was almost there and it was like 10-15 minutes remaining to reach their office and my interview will be in just an hour later, to be honest, I received an email from them telling me that, they made a mistake and my interview was supposed to be on the last date that I proposed to them. It was a real shock to me how they are can make this mistake when I email previously for confirmation. I believe this is the most in-human thing anyone can do. So on the way I immediately emailed back that I am already here and I will not be able to come back later, and as expected no response again.
Since I was almost there I decided to go anyway and see what happens. When I was there I found a Senior Personel from another department and explained the situation. They really seemed to understand and care. Then the person was able to gather a few of the persons for my interview and then the point of contact was then finally notified about my visit. Once all this drama was ended I was welcomed by Senior Personel who was really nice and my interview then went on for a few hours. Met with a few Others from various departments.
The interview was part technical and part behavioral with lots of technical questions, previous work-related experience, and some engineering thought process exercises. There was a whiteboard coding challenge that was easy and simple but I failed miserably as I think I was nervous about the whole situation. After the interview, the Senior personnel gave me a tour of their other facility where all the cool stuff is going on. And then I was told I will have to go through another interview probably using zoom again with the most senior person which was supposed to be on that same day but everything got messed up for a timing mistake.
I have no regret that I did not get the Job since all the engineers I met were so nice and welcoming but they should take note about this behavior of them.
Note for any future interviewee:
If you decided to go there for in personal interview make sure you can actually talk with them and clearly get the time and not be ghosted by them. And if you are looking for a diverse company this is not a place for you.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions on previous work-related, computer vision questions, basic questions about perception, navigation, some thought process question about autonomous vehicle components, navigation, and safety.
I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Forterra in Dec 2018
Interview
The process was very personal, and it seems they genuinely care about determining the quality of the interviewee (in this case, me). I was contacted via email to set up a phone interview. The phone interview was a part technical, part behavioral. I received word that I was given an onsite interview opportunity shortly after. I went for my onsite interview and went through multiple rounds of fairly technical questions, some behavioral questions, and questions regarding my resume. My interviewers were friendly and responsive and seemed to actually want to be there (can't say that for many other interviews I've had). I was very pleased with the process as a whole and don't have any complaints.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I was asked many technical questions regarding robotic related principles and paradigms.