I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Applied Medical (Lake Forest, CA) in Jul 2017
Interview
Phone interview with human resource
Tour of facility before interview with insight into the way they manufacture their products.
interview with a panel of managers and engineers from different business units and departments.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The typical personality and technical engineering questions
I applied online. I interviewed at Applied Medical (Rancho Santa Margarita, CA) in Jan 2021
Interview
The interview process was of two rounds
1) Screening phone interview- Recruiter was professional and thorough in explaining stuff. It was all about behavioral questions such as tell me about yourself, why do you want to work, and job experience.
2) After 3 weeks next round was a zoom interview with the Engineering team and I would say it was a pretty bad experience. There were three engineers from the same department.
They looked so young and they mentioned to me that they are working for 4-5 years. They were wearing informal clothes and late for 10 minutes so I believe they looked at my project files 1 or 2 minutes or maybe they didn't even see it which they told me to send well in advace.
Next, they asked me simple questions like why Mechanical Engineering and explained about the projects I did, and then all the follow-up questions about the projects. I have quite a good experience in Medical device regulations and I prepared my answers by spending 3 weeks which aligns with requirements. Surprisingly I noticed all three engineers had no knowledge about the medical devices regulatory requirements and so it was obvious that they didn't understand what I am talking about at all. I also remember they asked me whether I was paid while working on the projects in the past which totally doesn't make sense so I guess it links with all the negative feedback from other people that they don't want to pay you the standard average salary for engineers in Southern California. Maybe they expect someone will work for them for a cheap salary ($60,000, they mentioned to me during the interview. You can earn 60,000 by working in McDonald's so at least have some respect for the profession) but an engineer knows its value in the market.
So in conclusion I would say the engineering team lacks professionalism, knowledge, and I believe engineers will not succeed in that environment. That being said it is good to start and work for a year and I guess that's what most people do and which is also clear based on the three interviewers who were in their early 30s with little experience. No one wants to stay for the long term.
Salary is not the only thing but a good positive and professional environment is very important to succeed in a career which you will never find here. I hope this will be helpful for people who are reading. I spent countless hours for a month preparing just to get a rejection because the engineering team lacks knowledge. Maybe I am wrong and just these 3 people or particular department have issues so I encourage others to write their experience after the interview so other people don't waste their time like me
I applied through university. I interviewed at Applied Medical (San Luis Obispo, CA) in Apr 2018
Interview
I had two phone interviews from different departments, both of which involved regular personality interview questions. Pretty easy interview, but unfortunately did not get an offer. Interviewers were super nice though and made me feed comfortable.