Oxford Nanopore Technologies Interview Questions
& Process

Got contacted about 3 weeks after sending in my CV and cover letter. The first interview was a 30-min call where they dug into my experience and checked my understanding of the technology – pretty technical for a first round! The next day, I was invited for a second and final interview the following week. This one was on-site. I had to give a 20-min presentation about a past project relevant to the role, followed by about 30-60 mins of both technical and HR-related questions. They also offered a lab tour, which was cool. Received the job offer about a week after the second interview. Overall, communication was good, and the people seemed nice, but the questions were quite intense.

I applied after seeing good reviews, and during the in-person interview, I had to give a presentation on why I'm a good fit. They interrupted me with questions during my presentation, which were not really relevant, and the interviewer was on their phone, which was really unprofessional. Then we did a lab tour with some team members, which was fine. I expected an update after a couple of weeks, but heard nothing. After a month, still nothing. I emailed HR for a decision and feedback on my presentation, but got no response. I noticed they kept reposting the job but never told me if I got it or not. It was unprofessional and a waste of my time. It's been almost 7 weeks and I've been totally ghosted, still waiting for an update.

The first interview was with the hiring manager, and it went really well with positive feedback from both sides. We talked about the role and what they were looking for from me, like my network and application area. Then, there was a second panel interview that included a presentation, which focused on things we discussed in the first interview. The first question in the second interview was technically wrong, which set the tone for a weird interview where the good vibes from the first meeting seemed to disappear, leading to rejection. It felt like the panel wasn't sure what they wanted. They told me I was unsuccessful and that my skills, knowledge, and experience weren't strong enough. It was a really unprofessional rejection, focused on making me feel bad. A disappointing experience, even though I got rejected.

So I first had this filmed video interview, which I was dreading because I have a stammer and really hate seeing myself on video. Then I got invited for an in-person interview in Oxford. I was shocked they invited me. They asked a lot of machine learning questions, even though I told them I don't know much about ML yet and wanted this internship to learn. My PhD is in computation, but without ML experience, it's tough to get hired. They rejected me because someone else had better ML skills, so my interview attitude clearly didn't impress them. It's a shame they didn't cover my £40 train tickets to Oxford, which I can't really afford, and they don't have other opportunities at my level. The questions about ML theory were uncomfortable, looking for specific keywords or an answer structure, but maybe that's on me for not knowing how to answer that kind of question. On the plus side, they did give a nice tour.