WillowTree Hardware Test / Validation Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

So first, there was this one-way video interview thing where you answer a bunch of questions. They were mostly about behavior, but you'll probably talk about your past experiences. Then, I had a 30-minute call with HR, which was also mostly behavioral. They asked if I knew any testing frameworks and wanted me to talk more about my experience. They also asked about a project on my resume and my favorite class. After that, it was a one-hour semi-technical interview with a senior test engineer where we really dug into my experience and how I approach problems. The final round was a bunch of interviews. I talked to more HR and PR people. Then there was a technical interview where I went over an assignment where I had to research a specific testing framework, which took me about 2-3 hours to prep for. After the technical part, I met another senior test engineer and we just chatted about our backgrounds. Finally, I met with some test engineers and they gave me a chance to ask all my questions. It was a great experience, and they got back to me pretty quickly, like a day and a half.

I got contacted via Jobvite for a video interview that I could record anytime through the website and I was given a due date to do so. It was a very new process to me but wasn't as bad as I thought. There are roughly 9 or 10 questions related to the position and I was given about a minute or two to read the question and think of an answer before the program starts recording your answer (roughly 1 or 2 minute to answer as well). Then I was contacted by a recruiter for a phone interview to go over my background and why I'm looking to join the team. I thought it went very well and it was aligned with my vision for my next job. The recruiter then contacted me again for another phone interview with one of the team members, they had a list of questions to go over and I just answered each question. I thought it went pretty well, they didn't seem to give feedback good or bad. It was a neutral reaction. Lastly, the recruiter asked to set me up with a video conference interview with a QA member, developer and the recruiter. The interview was "ok", it seemed like it didn't have a good structure. Some personal questions, some questions about why I'd like to join the company. The interview then focused mainly on coding in Java which wasn't a requirement for this position but I found out while talking to recruiter that they're mainly looking for someone with good programming experience to start their automation suite which I thought was very unfair to reveal that during the last interview since most of our talks were manual testing which I had a great deal of experience in. One of the interviewer didn't show up until the last 2 or 5 minutes of the interview and they were a key element for this interview since they had the same title I'm applying for. Overall, I think the experience started out very well and ended sourly. Not just because I wasn't offered the position, but I wasn't even considered to continue because I lack programming experience even though the job isn't called "Test Automation" or even require programming skills.

The interview process started with a recorded video interview using Hireview/SparkHire, which was mostly behavioral questions and asked why I was interested in the company. Then, there was a 30-minute phone screen that was also behavioral, but I needed to know technologies related to the position, like testing software. Finally, there was a 1-hour technical interview that didn't involve coding but focused on in-depth questions about the technologies used.