National Renewable Energy Lab Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I had a really bad experience with NREL, honestly the worst I've ever had. The interview itself was okay, but after waiting almost 6 weeks, they told me they didn't have the budget for the role. For those 6 weeks, they barely communicated with me. They kept saying they were really interested in hiring me, but didn't tell me about the budget issues until the very end. The whole process was one 3-hour interview. It started with a 30-minute presentation to a group of 8 engineers and the hiring manager, and then we had three small group interviews.

The recruiting process at NREL is extremely disorganized and chaotic. This is a great org doing amazing stuff, but they are losing out on good talent they need to solve serious climate problems! I applied for several positions online, and had a video chat with a recruiter shortly after. Everything seemed like a good fit and the recruiter indicated they wanted to continue with the process. However, partway through, the recruiter closed all of the positions I had applied for, and personally reached out to tell me those positions were listed under new Job IDs and I should re-apply under the new Job IDs. No problem. So I re-applied and notified the recruiter. However, following that, the recruiter ghosted me after several attempts to contact them. Eventually, several months later, I got an automated email saying the positions were closed without being filled. I was ready to take a pay cut to work for a cause I believed in, but the recruiting staff here is so disorganized and they fail at keeping candidates up-to-date on the process of their applications.

The interview process overall was smooth and well-organized. There were three interview rounds in total. It started with a phone screen with HR, followed by a Skype interview, and concluded with an onsite interview. The onsite portion consisted of 4-5 individual one-on-one interviews.