Wärtsilä Interview Questions
& Process

After I sent in my Summer Power trainee application for programmer roles, I got a phone call pretty quickly inviting me to an interview. The interview was on Teams, and the person interviewing me was really nice. During the interview, they told me more about the team and asked about my background and my previous coding experience. They let me know the results in under a week, also via a phone call.

The first round was physically at the office in Helsinki. It was an informal, unprepared interview process with scrum people. The second interviewer was late and busy with equipment. Their process focused on checking cultural and social team fitness, with no technical aspects. I was unprepared and spent 20 minutes on casual chat. The second interviewer then arrived, pulled out 6-7 questions from a paper, and asked them. This was not a normal interview, and I was rejected early, so it's good it happened in the first phase. For anyone applying, be prepared with management topics and use ChatGPT answers for this round.

The interview process involved recording responses to several questions within a 3-4 day timeframe. The video platform allowed unlimited takes, which was a plus, but seeing myself on camera was unsettling, leading me to re-record some answers. It was tough not having direct interaction; not having someone on the other end made it hard to read reactions or build a connection. Maybe others handle this format better, but I prefer a back-and-forth where I can express myself and also find out more about the job. The whole thing, from first contact to the interview, felt a bit impersonal and distant. A recruiter initially reached out via WhatsApp and email. When I had a question, I didn't get a reply. A simple recruiter check-in by phone or text could have managed expectations and shown Wärtsilä's focus on connection. Wärtsilä is a cool company with a mission I respect, but the interview process could better reflect their brand: warm, collaborative, and people-oriented.

The interview process started with a CV screening, no online assessment involved. Then, there was a technical interview covering many topics like OOP, C++ specifics, DSA, and general math. For C++ specifics, there were many questions on multi-threading, for example, what would happen if atomic variables are not used in a specific code scenario, which depends on compiler and CPU architecture. OOP had standard questions. Pointers were also discussed, but not smart pointers. Math questions included probability, statistics, geometry, and linear regression. It was quite difficult, but manageable if prepared. The most challenging part was the unexpected C++ specific questions related to compiler and CPU architecture. I also forgot the O(log n) Fibonacci solution and only remembered the DP linear time solution, though they helped me reach the O(log n) one. The biggest hurdle was understanding the interviewer's questions due to their English and microphone quality, which was a significant issue.