Areté Scientist interviews, decoded.

Had a phone screening, then a second in-depth phone interview. In that second interview, 3 employees who do the job talked with me. HR sent a follow-up email a few days later.

I got an email from HR for a phone screen. They asked me some behavioral questions and questions about my resume. They mentioned a background check would follow, and then an interview with the head managers. I was rejected by email a week later. My guess is it's because I'm a dual citizen, as the background check person seemed hesitant when I told them. The rejection email cited skills, which was odd since they initially said I had sufficient skills.

So I first had a chat with HR about typical behavioral questions. Then I had a technical interview where some scientists asked me questions and told me about their work at Arete. The questions weren't super technical, more like: can I explain Bayes' theorem conceptually? Tell me about my past projects. What other companies I've applied to. Do I have ethical concerns about working for a defense contractor? Do I know about Kalman filters? What programming language experience do I have? The next step was supposed to be a presentation on a past project, but I didn't get that far.