I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at TORC Robotics (Blacksburg, VA) in Oct 2018
Interview
I took their coding challenge on HackerRank early in September, and heard nothing for close to 45 days. In late October, I got a mail from their HR about a video call coding round, which was the usual assortment of object oriented C++ and a couple of Kalman Filter questions that went well.
I got invited to Blacksburg for an onsite interview next week, which was the worst interviewing experience I've had. I flew from Boston to DC, connected to Roanoke and then drove for an hour to Blacksburg just for an hour and half with two senior engineers. The two were friendly but were completely unprepared and looked like they just had my resume handed to them.
They asked me to talk about my robotics experience (for which they nodded all the way and had no questions or comments about). This was followed by a couple of very open ended questions which they admitted they hadn't even thought through - which would have been fine if it was a conversation of sorts - they just had no comments for whatever I had to say. At the end of an hour, they just had no more questions for me - again, displaying their preparedness for the interview - and they asked me to ask them questions instead, which I feel I did as I can.
Oh well, at least I got to drive through the Appalachian in Fall.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
In my phone call, I was asked what the time complexity of a Kalman Filter?
I applied online. I interviewed at TORC Robotics in Oct 2021
Interview
I applied on October 2021. After the third (last) round of interview (supposed to be on-site but held virtual because of the pandemic), I did not receive any feedback until I reached out to the recruiter after around 2 weeks. I expected a simple yes or no result.
The recruiter called me and told me that the background knowledge was great, but we are concerned about c++ coding and wanted me to solve a 4 hour coding challenge in Hackerrank despite what I heard in the last interview to get a final feedback.
Solved the coding challenge and all test cases checked as green and good to go. I received a rejection email around one week after the test submission, saying that I did not pass the assessment!
They were nice people, but totally wasted my time(around a month) and effort, and were completely dishonest with me.
I do not recommend this type of company to any of my friends and wanted you all to know their tricks and excuses.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
First round: half hour with the recruiter talking about all the company, salary expectations, and checking the overall skills.
Second round: 1 hour, Cultural fit with the hiring manager and another software engineer. Asking behavioral questions as well as the technical questions from my resume.
Third(last) round: 2 hours, combination of basic conceptual c++ coding and design questions in robotics software development, as well as linear algebra, estimation theory, and sensor fusion.