I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Siemens (Princeton, NJ) in Jul 2017
Interview
The position was pertaining to a research engineer for their Corporate Technology branch in Princeton, New Jersey. Specifically, this position was for their 'Intelligent Systems and Verification' team.
The recruiters contacted me over email, there were no phone calls or any involvement for a prior conversation whatsoever. There was a 1 hour phone screen interview. I tried calling/emailing the recruiters for doubts but apparently they were busy holidaying during that period and without any exaggeration that was literally the response which I received.
I laid out my entire experience in my 1 hour phone interview. I wasn't too hopeful since I thought they needed someone more experienced (Phd) in Dialog systems and state management.
I still got "emailed" for their onsite round and they expected me to prepare a 30 minute + 15 minute Q+A presentation in just about 2 days. I spent day and night doing my presentation and learning more about Dialog systems engineering in the time period that I had. They scheduled an entire day worth of interview from 9 pm - 5 pm with over 15 individuals split into 7 hour slots with approximately 2 individuals in each hour. They were all males, not even 1 female and that just explains for their diversity in corporate technology research.
I experienced the most horrible experience of my life. They were trying to explain to me how they were all applied scientists and how they are so "cool" in what they do whereas in reality they were just a bunch of failed academics trying to make an "impact" by devoting 30% research time. Yes that's correct, only 30% of the job was research, rest was travel, presentations, meetings etc.
I explained to them all the research experience I had in Knowledge Representation & Reasoning, everything I studied, but somehow they wanted more. They knew my current qualifications, they knew of my willingness and interest to learn, they knew of the sincerest preparation I had put in both for their questions and the presentation and yet they seemed so ignorant of it.
The icing on the cake was a small 30 minute coding challenge which they conveniently placed towards the end of the day when I was literally exhausted to the point of puking. Apparently, the presentation with 7 hours worth of interactions with 15 people explaining them the same stuff over and over again wasn't enough to make them happy.
An extremely weird situation was with one of the people who did a Phd in genetic algorithms and yet knew nothing pertaining to the concept of AI, hell he couldn't even speak proper English. If researchers conducting research in the United States can't speak English and yet happen to get in then I don't know what in the world is their team about.
Anyways, I didn't hear from them and 2 weeks later I sincerely followed up with the head of their department and got an automated response. I was heart broken for their complete ignorance, it affected me to a very serious level and has been my worst interview experience in my life.
I haven't shared this experience with anyone except gathering some courage in writing this post after 3 long months. I hope my post can save a few souls from this joining this disgusting branch in their company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a Dialog State Management system for weather forecasting.