Anyone here ever have a phone interview with Intel?

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Special K

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
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Originally posted by: stam01
I'm a senior in CPE/EE/CSC and had 3 phone interviews with Intel this year, 2 for a position in Portland and 1 for a position in Hudson. I felt like I knew maybe about 60-70% of the stuff they asked in the phone interviews. The Hudson location called me back to bring me up for onsite interviews, which surprised me because I thought I did pretty bad overall.

Anyways, after the onsite interviews (6 technical interviews straight through the day), I completely bombed most of the day, and was not offered the position. Hopefully you'll have more luck than I did... let me know if you want to hear about some of the questions asked during the onsite interviews. The position was in product engineering for network processors.


What did they ask you on the onsite interviews?
 

bharok

Senior member
Jun 19, 2001
401
0
0
Originally posted by: bharok
hey
i just got in interview for an internsip (im a soph. in ECE).
the internship is in validation engineering < - are there any specfic questions for that ??
Also what are some analog questions they could ask ?
i also have to review my digital logic specifically sequntial logic, flip flops etc -- > forgot it all since I have not done it in about one year ...

BUMP interview in 2 days

also any VHDL questions ??
 

stam01

Member
Nov 19, 2001
114
0
0
Originally posted by: SpecialK
Originally posted by: stam01
I'm a senior in CPE/EE/CSC and had 3 phone interviews with Intel this year, 2 for a position in Portland and 1 for a position in Hudson. I felt like I knew maybe about 60-70% of the stuff they asked in the phone interviews. The Hudson location called me back to bring me up for onsite interviews, which surprised me because I thought I did pretty bad overall.

Anyways, after the onsite interviews (6 technical interviews straight through the day), I completely bombed most of the day, and was not offered the position. Hopefully you'll have more luck than I did... let me know if you want to hear about some of the questions asked during the onsite interviews. The position was in product engineering for network processors.


What did they ask you on the onsite interviews?


They asked a whole lot of stuff... though it depends on the position you're going for.
I remember questions about MOSFETs, MOS Capacitors, PN Junctions, VTC curve of MOSFET, etc., drain current equations, anything related to transistors and how they're made, what happens when you cut the source.
Had a small section on Opamps, feedback resistors, etc, basically why they are used, how it amplifies.
Digital logic, using K-maps to simplify a circuit. A lot of the times they would show me a picture of several gates connected together and I had to tell them what it did or what the truth table was. I remember a lot on CMOS, NANDs, etc.
A small section on C programming - showed me a few pieces code and had to run through it and tell them what the output would be. Also, some Perl programming, how a regexp works.
Some basic electric circuits stuff - how capacitors affect voltage over time (graph it too).

It was pretty tough... I have to say that I have learned about 80% of the stuff they asked and had never seen the other 20% of it. However, I only remembered maybe 30-40% of the stuff they asked because it just covered so many areas. From what someone has told me though, the Intel location in Hudson seems to ask more technical questions than any other location. The position I was going for was for network processor testing and verification, hence the heavy concetration on MOSFETs and what makes them work, as well as the programming part (the job would require going through large printouts of test data and maybe using a scripting language to extract that information).

Looking back, I think they didn't expect me to know everything, but because I got burned out pretty badly by the end of the day, I was just ready to get out of there and I think they saw that. Usually I don't let my emotions show like that, but I hadn't been in such an intense interviewing process like that before. So, I guess if you don't even know the answer, just try to work it out verbally and show them that you kind of know what you're talking about, instead of stressing out and coming up with a bad answer. Plus it probably didn't help that it was the day after my last fall exam, and the day before winter break started.

Hope this helps. Good luck! Heh, maybe you can hook me up later on if you get a job :)
 

bharok

Senior member
Jun 19, 2001
401
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0
Originally posted by: stam01..........
From what someone has told me though, the Intel location in Hudson seems to ask more technical questions than any other location. The position I was going for was for network processor testing and verification,.......

I have an interview with husdon people tomm. for a internsip
in verification ....
i dont remeber my digital logic - have not done anyhting digital in a year or so :(
i hope it is not tooo hard ....
 

Special K

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,098
0
76
UPDATE

OK, so my interview was today. Overall it went pretty well, or at least as well as the phone interviews, which is a good sign. Another good thing is that they said there are as many positions open for recent college grads as there are candidates invited out to interview for them, so there shouldn't be any competition for the jobs. They say it will work like a draft in that different teams will "draft" people to their team they think will be a good match, assuming their answers during the interviews were acceptable.

The interviews themselves didn't seem very intense to me. Maybe it was because I felt like i knew most of the questions. The first interview was mainly HR type questions: i.e., tell me about a time you acted as a leader, tell me about a time in which you had to perform under time constraints, stuff like that. They also asked me some basic questions about chipsets, since that is what they design in Folsom.

The second interview was all logic design problems. He had me state demorgan's theorem, and then convert an AND-OR array to NAND gates only. He also had me derive the state diagram for a six bit sequence recognizer, and also give an alternate circuit that would perform the same function, but without having to use all the states. The rest of the time was spent once again on a problem involving 2 flip flops and a block of logic between them. The questions were more in depth than the ones on the phone though. I didn't get all the answers right at first, but after he gave me hints I understood the problem and eventually came to the right answer.

The 3rd interviewer asked me about my internship experience, and gave me some more problems involving setup and hold times. He also gave me a hard question - he drew a square on the board and said it represented a chip. He drew a dot in the middle and said that was where the clock originated. He then drew dots at random points on the square, and told me to find a way to ensure that the clock would arrive at each of those points at the same time. All I had to work with were clock buffers. I came close to the right answer, I said find the longest path and then add buffers to all other paths to equal the delay of the longest path. The acutal correct answer was to place the same number of buffers and same length of traces between each point so that the distance between the clock and any point on the chip was the same.

The 4th interviewer had me write out a VHDL description of a state machine, write out in C the bubble sort algorithm, and then he drew a sequential circuit on the board with 2 flip flops and some logic. He drew out the 2 input waveforms for several clock cycles, and then asked me to trace out the output. I got all of those questions right.

It definitely sounds like an interesting job. They said we should know if they are interested or not by late next week. Now I just have to prepare for Austin on tuesday. I'm going to have to study the setup/hold time stuff some more.
 

Wingznut

Elite Member
Dec 28, 1999
16,968
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Congrats! It sounds like you did quite well.

Like a few of us have already said, it's not of ultimate importance that you get every question right... But moreso that you are able to follow their lead to come to the correct conclusion.

Keep us updated. :)
 

The Wildcard

Platinum Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Indeed, plus sometimes they are looking at how you go about trying to answer the questions or solve a problem.

Good luck!
 

Special K

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,098
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76
UPDATE

The Austin interview was yesterday. First of all, I was surprised at how small Intel's Austin location is, compared to the one in Folsom. It would be easy to miss the Austin site, as there are no large signs posted and it looks like they share the building with other organizations. The Folsom site was huge and impossible to miss.

The first interview here was on software. Most of the questions involved me writing a program in C to perform some function, identify a bug in some existing code, or identify programming terms like const, static, enum, etc. I didn't do extremely well on this interview, but after getting hints from the interviewer I was able to get the correct answer in all but 1 question.

The second interview was more logic design, along the same lines as before. The only new question he asked me that I didn't know was why would you use a latch in a synchronous circuit as opposed to a FF? I said fewer gates but that wasn't the answer he was looking for, and he never told me the right one.

The third interview was about validation, since that is the position they are recruting for. The interviewer asked me very open ended questions about how I would go about testing a system, so I really can't say how well I did on this one because he never really said if my answers were "right" or "wrong" like the others did.

The last interview was about computer architecture concepts like caches and pipelines. I did really well on this section.

Overall this interview was more difficult than the last one, but I still think I did fairly well. I should hear back from both sites by the end of the week.

 

Special K

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,098
0
76
Originally posted by: bharok
Originally posted by: stam01..........
From what someone has told me though, the Intel location in Hudson seems to ask more technical questions than any other location. The position I was going for was for network processor testing and verification,.......

I have an interview with husdon people tomm. for a internsip
in verification ....
i dont remeber my digital logic - have not done anyhting digital in a year or so :(
i hope it is not tooo hard ....


So what was yours like?
 

Ilmater

Diamond Member
Jun 13, 2002
7,516
1
0
Originally posted by: amoeba
The advantage of a 1 hot encoding is that there will be no conflicting voltage in the mux and there will be no high impedence Z state in which none of the select lines are on.
Sh1t, my brain just exploded.
 

Rock Hydra

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2004
6,466
1
0
Yeah, make sure you keep a cool head. My cousin went to an interview wiht nVIDIA....He got stressed and so nevous that he couldn't think. Didn't get the job.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,134
2,450
126
Wow, I only knew the answer to the SRAM/DRAM question and the UNIX question. That said, I'm an IT guy, not an engineer.

Anyway, my phone interview with Intel back in the day was pretty easy. They just asked me what skills I learned in college, and then asked me if I wanted to fly out to California for an interview. What was I going to say to a practical 3 day vacation with free hotel and airfare? NO?!? ;)
 

Special K

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,098
0
76
UPDATE

I got a job offer from the Folsom site, but not from the Austin one. The job at Folsom sounds interesting, but the salary seems kind of low for northern CA, based on the info. I found at salary.com. Here are the highlights of the offer:

location: Folsom, CA
salary: 52k

stock options: 1000 shares of stock, 40% available the 1st yr, 30% available the 2nd year, 20% available the 3rd year, and 10% available the 4th year. Also if the price goes up since the time you first purchase shares, later shares you buy are at the original lower price.

bonuses: Intel employees are eligible for 3 cash bonuses per year. It's calculated off your salary and a target number determined by Intel, but for me the bonuses would work out to about $4200/yr.

They also have a profit sharing plan for retirement and pretty good dental and medical coverage, from what some people have told me.

They also cover relocation to Folsom.

What do you guys think about this offer?

EDIT: I should also mention that I have already applied to 10 grad schools and have been accepted into 4 so far, and rejected from 1. This is the only job offer I have, so if I don't take it the alternative would be to go to grad school full time and get an MSEE.

 

toekramp

Diamond Member
Jun 30, 2001
8,426
2
0
Originally posted by: SpecialK
UPDATE

I got a job offer from the Folsom site, but not from the Austin one. The job at Folsom sounds interesting, but the salary seems kind of low for northern CA, based on the info. I found at salary.com. Here are the highlights of the offer:

location: Folsom, CA
salary: 52k

stock options: 1000 shares of stock, 40% available the 1st yr, 30% available the 2nd year, 20% available the 3rd year, and 10% available the 4th year. Also if the price goes up since the time you first purchase shares, later shares you buy are at the original lower price.

bonuses: Intel employees are eligible for 3 cash bonuses per year. It's calculated off your salary and a target number determined by Intel, but for me the bonuses would work out to about $4200/yr.

They also have a profit sharing plan for retirement and pretty good dental and medical coverage, from what some people have told me.

They also cover relocation to Folsom.

What do you guys think about this offer?

EDIT: I should also mention that I have already applied to 10 grad schools and have been accepted into 4 so far, and rejected from 1. This is the only job offer I have, so if I don't take it the alternative would be to go to grad school full time and get an MSEE.


seems about 10k low to me :(
 

Yossarian

Lifer
Dec 26, 2000
18,010
1
81
congratulations! that's awesome that you got an offer. would intel pay for grad school? of course that would limit your choices of school quite a bit I'd imagine.
 

Special K

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,098
0
76
Originally posted by: toekramp
Originally posted by: SpecialK
UPDATE

I got a job offer from the Folsom site, but not from the Austin one. The job at Folsom sounds interesting, but the salary seems kind of low for northern CA, based on the info. I found at salary.com. Here are the highlights of the offer:

location: Folsom, CA
salary: 52k

stock options: 1000 shares of stock, 40% available the 1st yr, 30% available the 2nd year, 20% available the 3rd year, and 10% available the 4th year. Also if the price goes up since the time you first purchase shares, later shares you buy are at the original lower price.

bonuses: Intel employees are eligible for 3 cash bonuses per year. It's calculated off your salary and a target number determined by Intel, but for me the bonuses would work out to about $4200/yr.

They also have a profit sharing plan for retirement and pretty good dental and medical coverage, from what some people have told me.

They also cover relocation to Folsom.

What do you guys think about this offer?

EDIT: I should also mention that I have already applied to 10 grad schools and have been accepted into 4 so far, and rejected from 1. This is the only job offer I have, so if I don't take it the alternative would be to go to grad school full time and get an MSEE.


seems about 10k low to me :(

Yeah if it were 10k higher I would most likely take it...

 

trmiv

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
14,670
18
81
Reading the technical stuff in this thread makes me feel extremely stupid, and my brain hurt.

ongrats on getting an offer SpecialK. Now you have a decision to make.

 

Special K

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,098
0
76
Cool, just got another phone interview with the site in Hillsboro. I was just there last week and actually saw the site, it's huge...
 

amoeba

Diamond Member
Aug 7, 2003
3,162
1
0
and you are right about intel austin, I live here and I don't know where they are.
 

Koing

Elite Member <br> Super Moderator<br> Health and F
Oct 11, 2000
16,843
2
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Congrats dude :)

You know your stuff so all the best.

Koing

 

Wingznut

Elite Member
Dec 28, 1999
16,968
2
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Originally posted by: SpecialK
Cool, just got another phone interview with the site in Hillsboro. I was just there last week and actually saw the site, it's huge...
That's where I work. :)

 

slycat

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2001
5,656
0
0
definitely jump at the experience for now. u'll learn tons and it'll be a great stepping stone to elsewhere.

grad school will always be there when u want it.