The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at MathWorks in Feb 2012
Interview
I had a total of 4 over-the-phone interviews all about a week apart after sending in my resume about one month earlier (initial screening, followed by a technical skills interview, then one with the hiring department, and finally one with someone from hr).
All the interviewers were very kind, cordial and completely accommodating in terms of scheduling. It was definitely one of the most positive and rewarding interview experiences I've ever had.
The most critical checkpoint is of course the tech interview. Brush up as much as you can (I recommend the Algorithm Design Manual) and explain your thought process as you answer questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Recall a time that you had a conflict with a team member.
The interview was challenging involving the team leaders & the manager in individual sessions & then a group session with everyone involved including a current graduate who took turns to ask interesting questions.
As well as two average algorithm questions, the technical interview also asked three easy math questions. One commonsense question, one permutation question and one calculus. One of the coding questions was the classic fibbonacci sequence.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write an algorithm for generating the Fibonacci sequence and how would you optimise it.
Broadly speaking, it consisted of a non-technical stage and a technical stage, all conducted via phone.
Non-technical stage included a chat with the equivalent of HR, finding out more about you and vice versa.
Technical stage was with a member of the team I would be joining, which was to find out more about my technical background. This included technical questions relevant to the work I'd be doing, in my case describing the inner workings of a particular process in detail.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe the steps in a typical gradient descent loop