I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Applied Materials (Sunnyvale, CA) in Jan 2016
Interview
The second interview was in person. It was a day-long interview with an hour-long presentation in the morning. The rest of the day comprised of interviews with various members of the team. Very nice people.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why would you like to join Applied?
What is the expertise that you will bring?
I applied through other source. The process took 5 months. I interviewed at Applied Materials (Mountain View, CA)
Interview
Was contacted by the team lead since they had liked my research publications. The interview involved 2 rounds of 1:1 discussions with the team lead of the Veranome (spatial biology) division, 90 mins interview with another scientist, followed by a 4 hour interview consisting of presentation and several rounds of panel interviews including the senior leadership. There were 10-11 people on the panel.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions about research and technical know-how since panel followed technical presentation. Very simple and discussion based with a lot of hypothetical scenarios regarding the research.
Did not get any opportunity to ask any questions from my side to the team.
In two interviews the panel did not introduce themselves and gave no description of what they do in the company, making it hard to evaluate their understanding and knowledge about a given concept. I guess when the answers to their questions started with a simpler explanation they must have assumed that the candidate does not understand the complexity. They instead sounded offended. Despite reminding them that they had not introduced themselves and thats why i dint understand the level of complexity expected in their answer. And without the knowledge of their experience and expertise, I felt safer to assume that they would have a basic level of understanding. Felt very weird after these two panels. Some of the scientists on the panels were much better communicators than others.