Arista Networks Hardware Test / Validation Engineer interviews, decoded.

I reached out to the hiring manager directly via phone, as the job posting suggested. We chatted about my background and the classes I've taken. He seemed like a great guy, very helpful and personable, though I can't recall his name now. The interview itself happened within about a week, back in summer 2016. It's a good idea to brush up on C and algorithms before you go. I felt I did okay, but it wasn't quite what they were looking for. It turned out they thought I was aiming for a full-time role, not an internship, which is what I was looking for at the time since I was still a student. The recruiter apologized for the mix-up afterwards.

So I applied for a system testing role, L2/L3 level, and they knew I was L4/L7 background, and they still called me for an interview. I thought the interview went pretty well, lasted about 2 hours. Unfortunately, they rejected me without giving any specific reason, which was a bit frustrating. The hiring team spent a lot of time talking about the company, almost like they were the only ones with good engineers, which I didn't really appreciate. Overall, it was a decent experience, but the rejection without feedback was a downside.

There were 3 rounds of interviews. The first round was with a peer, the second with the manager, and the third with the Director. They started with very basic questions like ping and then got into more in-depth technology questions. They asked about the details of multiple protocols and assessed how you approach a problem. If you don't pass the first round, they typically don't move you to the next. Overall, it was a good experience.