Research Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at STR with 3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 50% positive. To compare, the company-average is 46.4% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Research Engineer roles take an average of 49 days to get hired, when considering 2 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at STR overall takes an average of 25 days.
Common stages of the interview process at STR as a Research Engineer according to 2 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 22%
Group panel interview: 22%
Phone interview: 22%
Background check: 11%
Skills test: 11%
Presentation: 11%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
3-part interview with a phone screen, on-site panel interview, and then HR call. Generally they were all conversational; mostly consisted of reading through resume/CV and asking questions about it. Fairly straightforward interview process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Talk about a difficult time you had during a project and how you navigated through it.
I applied online. The process took 7 weeks. I interviewed at STR
Interview
I applied for a junior level signal processing position around summer of 2017. I had a phone interview shortly after applying that went well enough to garner an in person interview ~2 weeks later. Onsite I met with 5 or 6 engineers of varied experience levels, everyone was friendly enough. The company vibe is definitely "Small New England Defense Contractor", it seems to have the kind of work atmosphere you'd get at MIT LL/MITRE/"golden days" BBN, and it seems a lot of the senior employees and management used to work at those places. I had traveled from out of state to interview and they didn't offer travel/lodging accommodations so I drove and stayed with a friend.
After interviewing, I emailed HR and the manager I met with thanking them for bringing me in. I reached out a little over 2 weeks later since I hadn't heard anything back at that point. A month later, still having heard nothing, I reached out again and was finally met with a short email from HR that I was not a good match at that time. All good, looking back I think I wasn't a great fit for that specific role. However, the total lack of communication until I had reached out several times left a bad taste in my mouth. At a company this small, not contacting candidates you bring onsite (esp. without offering travel reimbursements) in ANY way within ~2-3 weeks gives off an appearance that you don't really respect the candidate's time. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that kind of turnaround, regardless of whether or not they're sending an offer - I work at a similar company now and we have no problem getting back to candidates within a week or two. Hopefully that doesn't happen often!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
General questions about projects I had worked on, how I could have done certain things differently, technical questions about design choices I made, etc