Georgia Tech Research Institute Research Engineer II interview questions

Initially I spoke with the head of the division over the phone. At the time I was in graduate school at Georgia Tech, and he had gotten a copy of my resume from one of the career events (either one of the on-campus events, or one of the GTRI-specific events, which I would encourage you to attend if you are a US citizen and a student at GT). After that invited me to their building. I came by a few days later, in a suit a tie. I spoke two or three branch managers, and a senior engineer who would later be my direct supervisor for a period of about a year. They did most of the talking. It was mostly informal, and honestly I could barely follow what they were talking about. I was a strong student, but it was a big rush and the subjects were only somewhat familiar. I also spoke with a couple PhDs (most of them are not managers, but have similar seniority). This was largely informal as well. All in all it was a lot of fun, but I can't say my experience would be representative of yours. I was coming from the same institution, and already had some idea of what they did. GTRI is a very heterogeneous place, and people do things differently all over. Your interview could end up being very technical, so buyer beware.

Before I begin, you should know that each lab within GTRI is completely different. Your experience may not match mine if you aren't interviewing with the same lab. But in my experience people were upbeat, liked their work, and seemed interested in working with me. Submitting online applications had no traction (black hole is apropos). I only received an interview request after a personal referral. My interview was scheduled for a half day, not including the dinner they provided. I met with representatives from all levels of hierarchy within the lab Some interactions were in groups, some were done on an individual basis. I also met with the benefits person in that first interview. There were no directed skills tests that day, only questions about my resume and the projects I had previously worked on. After a few days, I was brought back for a second interview. I was provided lunch, met with people not available during my first interview, and I participated in a skills test. It was designed to identify my domain strengths, covered a variety of topics, and was pretty easy. Given the breath of the questions, I was not too disappointed that I flubbed some of them. It took less than an hour. About a week later I received an offer.