Screening call, technical take home task 4-5 hours, in person discussion of task and extensions. Submitted to github repo and shared before interview. Generally quite pleasant and lots of guidance given for technical task on how to present/things to consider.
I applied online. I interviewed at Aurora Energy Research in Feb 2023
Interview
First round of interview was with the hiring manager. Took about 45 minutes. Fairly easy. The hiring manager asked me about my background and interest in this role.
Before the second round of interview, I was given a week to work on designing an optimization model for battery operation. The exercise would form the basis of discussion in the interview.
While the interview was smooth, the interviewers were far from engaging. They could add a bit of human touch in the process, listen and ask follow-up questions. It felt like I was talking to a robot who kept firing questions after questions. And the questions asked were premeditated that they already had answers in mind. I was hoping they could address my model head-on, somehow I got the feeling they didn’t even review my assignment beforehand. I just lost interest after the interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
First round:
1. What are you past optimization-related projects?
2. Why do you want to leave your current role?
3. Why are you interested in electricity market?
4. How do you speed up the optimization model?
Second round:
1. How do you approach the pre-interview assignment?
2. What are the things in your model that you can improve?
3. How would you make this model into a product? Requirements?
4. Explain the costs in objective function.
