Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) Interview Questions
& Process

It was a pretty relaxed interview with the Engineering Manager. We mostly talked about my resume and my experience working with teams, and they asked a few basic signal integrity questions. They also gave me time to ask questions at the end.

There wasn't a phone screen. The interview started with a facility tour. They talked about their infrastructure, how they manage it, and the specific technologies they use. During this, they asked questions to see what experience I had with those technologies.

The recruiter mentioned the onsite interview would be a personal interview, which turned out to be untrue, as it was primarily a technical interview. The technical questions were fairly simple, but the interviewer seemed to be looking for specific buzzwords rather than genuine understanding. One question I answered in great detail, as it's part of my daily work, was met with condescension; the interviewer implied I wasn't thinking about it correctly due to my use of specific terminology. He then asked me to describe a module I'd developed, and upon my explanation, questioned if I had actually built it myself. This was quite insulting. Ultimately, I was offered a junior role with a low salary, which even the recruiter seemed surprised by. I wouldn't accept it, even for a significantly higher salary, due to the lack of open-mindedness and the disrespect shown.

I had a great experience interviewing onsite at X-ES for a firmware engineering role in late 2022. HR was super helpful and clear about the job and what comes next. All the engineers I met seemed really competent, understood things well, and were easy to picture working with. When I got there, my HR recruiter gave me a tour of the new headquarters. We saw all parts of the building and I got a sense of where I'd work and how things get done at X-ES. After that, I had a few interviews in a row with the engineers. Each one felt relaxed, and they seemed keen on getting to know me personally as well as my skills. They cared a lot about how I thought through problems and explained my process, not just getting the right answer. They were happy to answer any questions I had. If you're pretty qualified, know your strengths and weaknesses, and can jump in and learn in small teams, you're probably who they're looking for. It was my best interview yet, and I would've taken the job if my personal situation hadn't changed during the offer period.