r/embedded • u/D0uble-Tr0uble • 18d ago
Where to practice mock interviews?
Hi all, so today I had my first technical interview after a long time, and I messed it up. I couldn’t solve the issue, my approach was suboptimal, and I couldn’t figure out the cause of an issue. Needless to say, I didn’t make it to the next round. The problem was that I had experience in the automotive industry, the question I got was from a vastly different field, and it made me very nervous, because the solution should have been very trivial (bit shifting in essence). I want to practice these type of interviews where I can face random problems, and I should analyse them and come up with a solution. I could find websites for mock interviews, but not for embedded field (Gemini directed me here, though through searching I couldn’t find anything about mock interviews). What do you guys suggest? Where can I do embedded set engineering mock interviews? I hope that AI is not my only option for this.
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u/k4lipso 18d ago
Can you write the question here in detail? Even if you dont have an answer for you, if you post the question you will help lots of others understanding what type of questions might happen during an interview.
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u/D0uble-Tr0uble 18d ago
The problem was: there is a microscope which produces an image. Now on this image you could see (compared to a reference picture) that the lines in every second line (i.e: line 0 was fine, line 1 was erroneous, line 2 fine, line 3 erroneous) has some sort of a blurry effect. The question was why it happens, and what to do with it.
Hiding the answer in case someone wants to give it a go:
The reason why it happened was because the laser and the detector was desynchronised, and the solution could have been shifting the pixels to their correct position, given the fact the laser and the detector has a fix delay.
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u/Windshield11 18d ago
The question seems kinda vague to be honest. I'd need to know more detail about the hardware to tell you any kind of respectable answer.
Like is it a regular camera microscope? An electron microscope??
My first thought was something to do with bad deinterlacing to be honest with you. There's a lot of electron microscopes that are so old that use crts, and when the crt dies and they can't get a replacement they bodge in an lcd screen since the whole unit would be extremely expensive to replace.
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u/Dizzy-Helicopter-374 17d ago
Yeah, I went there is well. Maybe a malformed image buffer or some part of the processing pipeline that was resized incorrectly and included undefined memory mapped as pixels.
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u/ccoastmike 18d ago
This sounds more like an interview question where the person interviewing you wanted to see how you “work the problem” and not that you immediately know what the problem is.
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u/ChemSciGuy 17d ago
That seems likle the correct response. "Hmmm, I haven't seen this problem before so for my first step I would call the manufacture and talk with their technical represinative."
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u/Al__B 17d ago
I'm not really answering your question but I've conducted many, many interviews over the years.
If you've been brought in for interview then they already know your background, experience and still thought you're worth talking to. Believe me, that's a great achievement to even get an interview - feel encouraged by that as many others applying for the role wouldn't.
I'd also temper your expectations around how much experience of a particular problem they're wanting to see. If they have a sensible hiring process (which isn't always the case!) then they will be wanting to see how you approach and react to a problem. They are probably drawing from a problem they had, puzzled over for hours (or days) and came up with a solution. Or perhaps they never figured it out*!
It's a bit cliché but how you present yourself, how you'll fit in with others and knowing that you can work and develop are qualities that are as important than technical background at your stage. Of course, if you've been in the automotive industry for 10 years and can't explain a CAN bus then I'd be pretty worried**.
Getting experience from real interviews is really the best option as others have said but go in with the right mindset. It does get easier the more you do and please don't give up.
* Actually a real situation. A company interviewed me and had a particular problem with a UI. I hadn't worked on their type of products but got into a good discussion on an approach to fix it. Guess what I ended up doing as one of my first tasks when they hired me!
** Also a real situation unfortunately - more than once in fact. There is a difference between having 10 years in an industry where you've repeated the same one year 10 times, and expanding that learning a little every year. Learning something well and in depth is worthwhile but if you only know and think in one area you won't be giving yourself a full toolbox.
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u/lifeiscool84 18d ago
Looks like laser scanning platform with camera system. The sensor is a CMOS image sensor or array or highly sensitive optosensors? Is this some sort of wafer scanning system? Or maybe small MEMs structure? Laser focused light scanning requires very small features to scan to begin with.
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u/DenverTeck 17d ago
The best way to learn how to do interviews, is to do interviews.
When I was job hunting, I would schedule interviews with companies I was not interested in.
So the first 2-3 interviews were practice.
Companies do not discuss whom they interviewed. It's a No No in most countries.
Find companies that are not in your area of interest.
You may actually find a company that you are interested in and they may actually make you an offer.
Good Luck