Toyota Research Institute Interview Questions
& Process

This interview process is the longest and most demanding I’ve experienced. It starts with a take-home exercise that feels like it’s meant to draw inspiration from your own work. Then, you have to prepare a technical presentation from scratch, which feels like providing free labor. After the onsite interviews, they stop respecting the scheduled call times. Since they don’t need you anymore, communication becomes very casual, and they disrupt your personal plans without apologizing. The people evaluating you might include recently hired social science managers and fresh grad school engineers, making the technical depth of the evaluation uneven at best. Be careful, the time investment is significant, and the process doesn’t show the respect candidates deserve.

The interview process took about 2-3 weeks. First, there was an HR call. Then, a tech video call. They asked me to debug python code and answer follow-up questions. Since the tech stack is python/javascript, I had to attempt the coding question in one of those languages. The second part was a coding question where I had to split a medium array into 2 parts recursively. I haven't heard back yet, but I'm pretty sure I'll be rejected because I'm not very familiar with Python.

The hiring process for TRI-AD in Tokyo took about three months from the initial HR contact to the offer. The most significant hurdle was the take-home assignment. While advertised as a 4-6 hour task, it demanded at least 10 hours due to the unfamiliar domain requiring extensive research, which was actually quite interesting. However, communication with HR was notably slow, with replies typically taking over a week, sometimes two. In total, there were four interviews and one initial HR call. Two of the interviewers struggled with English, which was surprising given the company's stated policy of English as its primary communication language. It later turned out one of these interviewers would be the hiring manager. These two interviews were very one-sided, with the interviewer dominating the conversation, leaving me with very little speaking time. The final offer was disappointing, falling short of my current salary expectations and the minimum I had indicated. It seems there's a lack of understanding that attracting top talent requires competitive offers and a swift process, rather than relying on standard Japanese contracts with minimal vacation and a low base salary compensated by a large year-end bonus. While I recognize the current economic climate might make many candidates accept less competitive offers, it feels like a short-sighted approach for a company aiming to compete with other leading tech firms.

It was a three-week process. Started with a 30-minute call with the hiring manager, mainly about my background. That call was okay until they seemed put off when I asked questions about the job, which felt like a red flag. Then, I had an hour-long technical interview with an engineer. They asked me some LeetCode questions and wanted me to write pseudocode in a Google Doc. A week later, I had another 30-minute call with the hiring manager. This time, they asked an easy LeetCode question and didn't give me any time to learn more about the role. After about 2 hours of interviews, I still don't know much about the position or the work environment. I never heard back after two weeks, so I pulled my application.