In designing Android software, what is your experience using parcelable versus serializable within an app?

"Having written code for Android apps for many years now, I am very familiar with both serializable and parcelable methods. In my first hand experience, parcelable provides a much faster and better user experience so I will always strive to take the time to write custom code for marhsaling and unmarshaling to create less garbage objects within an app."

Because parcelable is optimized for Android to be faster and more customizable, your interviewer will be looking to hear that you are willing to put in the extra work to utilize the parcelable method to achieve better performance within the software that you design. Give your interviewer your thoughts on the differences between the two methods of passing object references to activities within an app that you design and make sure that they understand that you are ready to perform the work to utilize the parcelable method when necessary.

"Due to it being a standard Java interface and its ease of implementation, serializable interface is pretty commonly used. But, because it uses reflection, many temporary objects are created within Android apps and this creates a very poor user experience. When the parcelable interface was introduced for Android systems, I have extensively focused on its use and finished products have benefited greatly."

What SDLC models are you familiar in working with?

"During my training in software engineering and in my early career, the waterfall model was the standard. In this model, each phase of the development process happens in a set order and projects using this model are easily managed. But over time, as the development projects that I have led have become more complicated and intricate, I have implemented the spiral model. This model has allowed the ability of end users to give feedback early on and often during development and helps to build a more customized product to our customers."

As a software engineer, you are very familiar with the software development life cycle. For this question, your interviewer is looking to hear what models you have worked on in the past. While there isn't necessarily a right or wrong answer to this question, try to show your flexibility to working with different SDLC models by bringing up your past experiences. Then, show you have knowledge of different models like the waterfall model or agile model. It is also a good idea to use this question as an opportunity for you to learn more about iRobot by asking your interviewer which model they work off of.

"In my current position with XYZ Company, my department utilizes the agile model in development life cycle. Since our products are so tailored to the needs of our customers, we get a working product very early on in the process and then I work hand in hand with customers to fine tune the software moving forward. It is a very effective model that has built a great reputation for our software among customers. I also have familiarity working with the iterative model and it has similar advantages to the agile model. If I were hired here at iRobot, can you expand on what models you use here in your software development life cycle?"

Would you say that you are a goal oriented on the job? What would I be able to do as your manager to help you achieve your goals if hired here at iRobot?

"I would definitely say that I am goal oriented on the job in wanting to contribute any way that I can to the overall benefit of the organization. In my current organization, our leadership focuses on overall sales numbers at the end of the year. To help achieve these goals, our department creates our own goals to help achieve the sales numbers needed to succeed. Last year, one of those goals was to be as creative as possible in our user experience design processes. With the launch of an exciting new app midyear, sales numbers skyrocketed and our department was instrumental in that. For me, it was important that we determined our goals as a team with the final stamp of approval from our manager. While this style of management really helped motivate me, I can thrive under any management style as long as expectations and goals for my work are clearly set."

At the heart of this question lies your interviewers desire to see what motivates you as a potential employee at iRobot. Make it clear to your interviewer that you certainly are motivated by on the job goals and do this by using an example of a time where you were motivated by and achieved a goal. Then, think deeply about the type of manager that you like to work for in terms of goal setting and helping our achieve your goals. Let your interviewer know what type of management styles you appreciate the most while being open to any style.

"For me, my day to day work is much more meaningful when I have goals to work for. In my current role, we have set timelines for our projects and this helps lay the framework for our goals. If hired for this position, my expectations of you as my manager would be to have goals clearly defined and a supportive atmosphere to be provided to work within."

The next cloud engineer that we hire here at iRobot needs to be able build a system that can handle a high amount of traffic. How would you test our system's ability to handle large amounts of traffic?

"Cloud computing has certainly revolutionized the storage of high amounts of data and a key piece that cloud based systems bring to the table are their elasticity for handling large amounts of traffic. I see my job as building a cloud based system to scale horizontally to be able to handle the most data and traffic possible. To test systems, I've used a few different tools that were all very accurate prior to go-live."

This question allows your interviewer to gain insight into your thought process and ability surrounding building a cloud network that has an architecture that can handle large amounts of traffic without failure. Some key points to focus on your answer are your ability to match capacity to system demand and use horizontal scaling in the design of the system.

"In my current position as a cloud engineer, I have utilized internet scale services like Amazon S3 and Elastic Load Balancing to ensure that our cloud systems could handle large volume that fluctuate seasonally. Because of the great functionality of the internet scale services, internal testing wasn't necessary as we knew we were in good hands through those services."

How do you stay organized and on track when working on multiple projects or duties at the same time?

"With any project that I am working on, I make sure to set benchmarks to meet deadlines ahead of time and set early personal deadlines to allow for some wiggle room. To do this, I am a proponent of using the Microsoft Outlook calendar and tasks functions to help keep me organized. I find that this method helps me stay on track with multiple projects while also leaving me wiggle room each day to fight the high needs fires that do come up in this job."

In this role with iRobot, you will likely be expected to manage multiple projects at the same time. Your ability to plan, manage deadlines and handle high needs items that come up on a regular basis will be essential to your success in this role and your interviewer is looking to hear how you plan for success. Whether you utilize an electronic tool or a written list, there are no right or wrong answers as long as you can prove in your answer that this method works out great for you.

"For me to stay on track, I make sure to take ten minutes at the end of each day to recap what was accomplished, what new came up on my task list and re-prioritizing my work for the next day. Then, upon arriving the next day and working through emails from the previous evening, I can adjust my task list for the day if needed. I tend to set aside two hours per day to work on long-term project needs while focusing a majority of my time on the short-term needs."

Here at iRobot, we ask our test engineers to follow specific QA protocols. What role do you feel QA plays in software development and testing?

"As a test engineer, I take great pride in my role of ensuring that systems go out to consumers as error free as possible. In my current role, I take the time to learn all of the system specifications that are laid out by our design engineers and customize my testing to follow those specifications."

As an experience software testing engineer, quality assurance should be ingrained in your brain and your interviewer is looking to get a sense of your personal feelings towards it in your work with this question. In your answer, be sure to highlight QA's importance in reducing errors, maintaining specifications, testing failure parameters and preventing defects from occurring. In the end, make sure that quality is your mantra in the eyes of your interviewer by giving an example or two of how you put QA in the forefront of your work.

"In my work throughout my career, quality assurance in my testing was an every minute of every day job on my part. While creating effective testing processes on new software is extremely important in following QA protocols, the recording of defects, issuing of reports and assisting the designers on fixing issues are equally important parts of the process that I'd love to let shine here at iRobot."

How would you handle a situation where a colleague was being very difficult to work with?

"In all honesty, any great work atmosphere that I've been a part of in the past has involved conflict between colleagues. In situations I have witnessed, conflict has stemmed from very open-minded people giving their two cents in particular situations and two people not seeing eye to eye. This happened recently to me in the planning phases of a new project. On of our UX Designers and I had a disagreement on the final layout of a new software roll out we were planning. It worked best for both of us to talk about our ideas and list the pro's and con's for our ideas. I kept an open mind to learn from her point of view and she did the same to me on my end. This led us to come up with a great compromise in the end."

In the team based atmosphere at iRobot, departments with different skills and backgrounds can often see things from different points of view and these situations can cause some internal conflict between coworkers. With this question, your interviewer is looking to hear how you handle situations where you are working with someone that can be seen as difficult. To give them the sense that you are able to work through conflict in a professional and sensible manner, try to talk through how you handled a conflict at work previously in the past and highlight the interpersonal skills that you used to help make it a positive situation.

"Last year, we had a new engineer join our team that was hired on from his internship with us. From his first day, he made it very evident that he would only handle certain tasks within our team and only work on certain projects. As his mentor to help get him up and running, I sat him down and discussed the expectations of each of our engineers as part of our larger team. I explained to him that our approach was not to pigeonhole ourselves into smaller tasks, but rather be well rounded engineers that could handle any project and be able to cover for each other if needed. He really appreciated this approach when I explained the benefits for his long term career goals with this approach. This example shows my approach to being very direct with people that I have a conflict with in the workplace and doing so in a very professional and educational manner."

If you were asked to review a colleague's code that they had written, what key things would you look for?

"As an experienced software engineer, I fully expect my colleagues to reach out to me for my insight and I never hesitate to provide open and honest feedback. When asked to do this, my main focus is ensuring that the code is readable and functional. If there are lines of code that need to be removed, I don't hesitate to let my colleague know that while also giving them feedback on why I feel it is unnecessary."

For this question, your interviewer will obviously be looking to hear that you have adequate knowledge when it comes to coding processes. But most importantly, your interviewer will be looking to gauge your ability to be a team player and focus on the bigger picture when working on a project. In your answer, focus on your attention to detail and your ability to help others when needed.

"When I'm asked to do this in my current position, my main focus is on regulatory requirements that were put in place for the project and security issues. I work with a team of great engineers that are very efficient coders and these two areas are most often overlooked."

Tell me about a time that there was a delay in the project and how did you handle that delay?

"I was working with my team on the configuration of the new HR system we were rolling out and the HR team asked for a new module that we thought would significantly delay the launch. In order to meet our internal client's needs, we offered to add the new module, but to avoid delays to the project, we reallocated a resource to work exclusively on the module. We all chipped in extra effort on the major project parts to make up for our coworkers' absence as he was working on the module. The coworker who did the module did a fantastic job which didn't require many changes from the group. Through all this, we were able to roll the product out on time and within budget."

In your answer, be sure to tell your prospective employer why there was a delay, but most importantly, how you handled it and got back on track. It's important to use the STAR format for questions like these: situation, task, action, result. Situation: the delay. Task: resolving it quickly and getting back on track. Action: how you went about executing the task. Result: how the steps you took to resolve it led to the effective and successful resolution of that delay.

"I am motivated by knowing something about the end customer and being able to relate to them as a person. A personal touch is always helpful for me."

What unique values can you bring to iRobot in your user experience design skills?

"I have really taken pride in my ability to add value to the business needs of the customers that I work with. During any design project, I take the time to work with end users to find their wants and needs out of the program. Then, as I create the UX design, I keep their needs at the forefront and do anything possible to exceed their expectations."

While your interviewer has shown confidence in your technical abilities to succeed at iRobot as a UX designer, this question is helping them gain insight into your ability to see the big picture in the work that you do. As you think about the unique personal values that you would bring to the role, try and paint a picture of your work tying to the end user and how you can help make it more productive, enjoyable and satisfying for them.

"As you can see from my resume, I have formal training and experience in user experience research and I know that this would benefit the work that I would be doing here at iRobot if hired for this position. I pursued this additional training in my career because of my passion for the customer journey in the programs that I design."

In your mind, when is monkey testing the most effective in testing new software?

"In my experience, monkey testing has been very effective in load testing and stress testing new software as standard testing methods couldn't do this without a lot of extra work. Because of the adhoc approach to the testing, load and stress on the software was most highly gauged through monkey testing."

By utilizing random inputs to check the behavior of a program, monkey testing has its time and place in the software testing process. For this question, your interviewer is looking to hear that you have an understanding of the theory behind monkey testing and how you would look to put it to work at iRobot to test their products.

"Because monkey testing is able to find unique bugs that standard testing won't find, I've found it to be very effective for testing new pilot software programs that are reaching new bounds. At my current job, I helped design a brilliant monkey testing process that utilized user behavior to look for certain probabilities of bugs within our systems that we were designing."

What experience do you have in the different types of software maintenance?

"Being familiar with all four types of software maintenance, my most used method of maintenance in my current role is corrective. Based on bug reports from end users, I work through coding and logic issues to resolve issues in a timely and effective manner. In the maintenance I perform, I never hesitate to pick up the phone and contact customers to hear first hand about what they are experiencing. By doing this, they feel like they are an important part of the process and it reflects well on me and my organization."

As a reputable company, iRobot takes their software maintenance processes seriously and your interviewer is looking to hear that you are familiar with the four different types of software maintenance. Talk to your interviewer about any work you have done in the past with corrective, adaptive, perfective and/or preventative software maintenance. Use specific examples and make sure that your interviewer walks away from your conversation knowing that you understand the importance of proper system maintenance.

"In my current role, I'd definitely say that a majority of the maintenance work that I do is adaptive maintenance. Working in banking software that is used around the globe, I help perform system maintenance for changes in currency on a pretty regular basis. This work requires research and talking with end users to help adapt the programs for their use. If hired here at iRobot, I also have experience performing perfective, preventative and corrective maintenance on software as well."

Do you consider yourself stronger in C++, C#, Java, or Python?

"In my last company, we had a bit of an outdated tech stack and used C# and .NET. I found myself fully immersed in those technologies, but had a strong desire to learn more and become more familiar with modern technologies and how I can apply that in my career. That's what has me so interested in this role. Over the last year, I've taken courses in Java and C++, which I noticed you prefer. I've become proficient in the skills and in side projects, applied my increasingly strong knowledge. I'm probably strongest professionally in C# as that has been where my experience lies, but my passion and dedication is on the Java and C++ side, as I feel that's the more modern alternative. I'm excited about the possibility of applying that knowledge in a role at iRobot."

Before your interview, do some research to understand what tech stack iRobot uses so you can best prepare and highlight your expertise. If you aren't as strong in one of the skills you feel is necessary, be sure to explain how you've used it and how you are growing your knowledge to become better. Be sure to be honest in your answer, as the company will likely test your strengths.

"I am motivated and excited about this new opportunity because it will challenge me to grow in my (X) skills. I love soccer and enjoy spending time with my teammates. I am interested in continuing my education by studying (Y) to further my career."

Talk about a time when things didn't go as planned on the job. What was the situation and what allowed your to persevere in that situation?

"A couple of years ago in my first role as a UI designer out of college, my team was tasked with coming up with a very short notice proposal for a potential high end customer. With a week turnaround time, I set right to spending my time gathering information on the company to build a mock design. When the proposal was submitted, I found out that the potential customer scoffed at my idea and the customer went with another organization's proposal for their use. The biggest piece of feedback that I got was that the UI design just wasn't conducive to the type of customers they were expecting. From that point forward, whether it has been with short notice or long-term products, I take the time to communicate with key decision makers from clients to gather information for making my design as user friendly as possible."

As a professional in the tech industry, you have likely had a project that failed, a promotion that passed you over or a meltdown occur at some point in time. Realizing that your interviewer fully understands and expects that failure happens, talk openly and honestly about a situation where you experienced failure or failed plans. Most importantly in your answer, focus on how you overcame the particular situation and discuss lessons that you learned moving forward that you can bring to this role at iRobot.

"Last year, I was working on a large scale project that put me face to face with a key customer. After traveling onsite with the customer to spend time with them, I exchanged contact information with two of the key decision makers. In the weeks following, I was sending them follow up emails with our business proposals and was getting frustrated at the lack of response from the clients. After my manager had questioned the viability of the potential customer, I picked up the phone and called them directly. It turns out that their responses back to me were being sent to a junk email folder that I neglected to consider. I apologized for the mistake, took action quickly and we came to a great agreement on future business together. After having a laugh about it with my boss, I now incorporate diligent communication follow ups both by phone and email with customers while also regularly checking all email inboxes."

Tell me about the most interesting project you have worked on this year and the biggest thing you learned from it.

"In my previous role we were working on a variety of projects with fingerprint recognition software. One of the most interesting projects was a fingerprint-based ATM system. It was a test project for a large banking institution. In addition to learning a great deal about fingerprint recognition, I was also able to learn a lot about the critical relationship between software and security."

Discuss with the interviewer one of your recent projects that particularly piqued your interest. Did it stretch you professionally? What was the biggest takeaway for you from that particular project?

"I find the majority of the projects that I have been working on this past year to be very interesting. If I had to choose one, I would choose to work on the Uber app. Since I am still in my internship, I didn't have any major contributions; however, I learned a lot about on-demand apps and building a friendly user interface."

"During my fall 2020, for my master's project, I have designed an android application that suggests to users the shortest possible path between different points by implementing the NP-hard Travelling Salesman algorithm. Additionally, I have also incorporated the espresso framework with android SDK for UI automation, which ended up saving my manual testing work and time. The project had provided me opportunities to implement an algorithm from scratch which was really challenging, and also to learn the espresso framework which was a new and fun part for me."

We are looking for innovators to join us here at iRobot. Where have you brought innovation in automation to a process in your career?

"To be very honest with you, I was really drawn to the automation side of engineering because of the constant need to be flexible and continuing me education to stay ahead of new trends. Last year, I helped develop a codeless test automation for my company that brought together our software engineers and end users to test in environments in a fast and efficient manner. The codeless testing was a first for my organization and really helped free up time for our software engineers to come up with solutions rather than spend time testing."

Innovation in software has occurred in many phases over the last 20 years and iRobot is always striving to be on the forefront of innovation in their field. For this question, think back on your automation experience and talk about a concept that you helped create that you felt was innovative. Really sell your interviewer on your ability to think outside of the box with this question by hammering home the idea that you can help bring new innovations to the team at iRobot.

"About four years ago, I was on a team that developed an AI bot that could test scripts and provide analysis on extremely large amounts of data in a short period of time. Our work focused on the algorighms that the AI would utilize in its testing work. From the start, the AI process was extremely accurate and efficient. Now, as things have changed over time, modifications to the AI system all center around changes to the algorithms. Based on our success, we presented our AI system at a national conference last year and it received a lot of great accolades."

"To be honest with you, the reason I am so drawn and passionate about testing because of the room for creativity and it is always pushing me to think out of the box. One such innovative initiative I have taken during my work at ________, where we had a set of devices running in two different operating systems one was iOS and another one was Android. The team used to run two separate scripts for both devices where a lot of parts were redundant. I have taken responsibility and initiative to identify such common functionalities and creates separate test suits to run them as a single unit and separated the rest of the functionalities based on the operating system, which ended up saving 20% of our script development time."

Do you have experience working with data in a cloud computing environment?

"My current organization has been using Apprenda, a PaaS, that allows us to develop, test and maintain our software projects. I also have experience mining and converting data off of public, community and private cloud networks. If hired here at iRobot, I think I would bring a wealth of cloud based experience to the data engineering team."

Over recent years, more and more companies are converting to cloud based computing services because the conversion allows them to save money and have better auditing trails. As a prospective data engineer with iRobot, your interviewer will be looking to hear that you are at least familiar with the concepts of working with cloud based data. Talk in details about the experiences you have while keeping your mind open to working with more in the future if hired with iRobot.

As a machine learning engineer, how do you avoid the curse of dimensionality in your designs?

"A common example that I use with people to explain complications in dimensionality is dropping a pin on a 10 foot straight line. This would be relatively simple to find. Next, if you dropped the pin in a 10 foot by 10 foot square, the task of finding the pin becomes more difficult. Adding a third dimension to make a 10 foot cubed area makes it all the more difficult to find the pin if placed within it. In bringing this back to machine learning, my job is to somehow make the three dimensional field that the machine will pull from easier to pull from. Last year, I was part of a team that developed a system for pulling public health data. We were able to set many variance thresholds that removed values that didn't change much from observation to observation. After careful testing, the system was able to pull information quickly and accurately based on these thresholds."

To effectively answer this question, it is important to first understand what dimensionality means in reference to machine learning and how it can curse a project. As the number of features increases in comparison to the number of observations within a data set, some algorithms struggle in pulling correct data. Your job on this question is to talk about ways that you can avoid the curse in your designs. Some possible things that you may mention and describe are feature selection, correlation thresholds and variance thresholds.

"As you can see from my resume, I've spent the last six years working in the electronics industry. Most of my machine learning work has focused audio data. To avoid the curse of dimensionality within the systems I've designed, autoencoders have been tremendous in pulling information. While a great amount of time and effort was needed to effectively train the systems, the work was well worth it in the end."

A huge part of our business here at iRobot is designing software for iOS. In this role, how would you steer away from retain cycles when using closures in Swift programming language?

"Because ARC handles most of the memory knowledge in Swift, I know ARC is prone to memory leaking and this can cause major issues in apps over time. The fix that I've used in my career to avoid retain cycles is using weak references in my coding."

This question allows your interviewer to assess your technical knowledge and skills in designing apps for iOS products in a very simple way. To successfully answer it, make sure that you can speak knowledgeably about the swift programming language and using closures to capture and store references within the software. To piece together everything for your interviewer, give a clear understanding of why retain cycles must be avoided in your processing.

Do you have experience working with different CASE tools? If so, what do you have experience with?

"In my current role, I regularly utilize both diagramming and web development tools. The diagram tools assist our software projects by outlining the system data and components in a graphical form for us and this saves us a great amount of time while also being very reliable. The web development tools greatly help me visualize site changes that I am making because I don't have a deep background in web development. If hired for this position, I'd look forward to learning other CASE tools for prototyping, quality assurance and maintenance."

The world of software engineering has greatly benefited from advancements in computer aided software engineering tools. Because iRobot is at the forefront of the industry, your interviewer will be looking to hear which tools you have experience with. Make sure not to concern yourself with providing a correct answer here, but rather focus on your flexibility to learn new aides when needed while explaining what you have experience with.

"During my career and in my experience with CASE tools, most of my experience is in the lower CASE elements that focus on coding and testing the software after initial development. CASE tools have certainly made life as a software engineer more efficient and effective and I'd look forward to learn any new CASE tools if hired for this position here at iRobot."

"Yes, I have a quite handful of experience in different testing tools and technologies. I have worked with Junit for the java unit testing, Perfecto REST APIs, TestNG, and Appium framework for mobile applications testing, python and selenium for web automation, Robot framework for the network parameters, and PCAP validation. Apart from these, I have also worked with espresso for mobile UI testing. And I am always looking forward to learning and implement new testing tools and frameworks."

This role with iRobot is highly technical. What is your understanding of this position and the responsibilities that come with it?

"From our previous conversation, understanding the job description, and researching the role online I feel that the job is best described as a project leader focused on X, Y, and Z. The technical requirements that you would like to see are A, B, and C. I am well versed in the tasks and programs you are asking for and am confident that I meet the strict requirements to perform in this role successfully."

Assure the interviewer that you bring a full understanding of the technical requirements attached to this particular job. It is essential that you research the role and thoroughly consume the information provided in the company's job posting/job description. Keep your answer to the point.

"My understanding is that you seek a candidate with expert level skills in X, Y, and Z, who can train junior employees. I am an expert user in all three of these areas. Do you have any questions about my technical expertise?"

If hired here at iRobot, what do you feel would be the biggest hurdle for you to overcome from the start?

"As you can see from my resume, I don't have any direct working experience with the financial industry and I would see that as my largest learning opportunity if offered this position. Like I did with my current job in the healthcare industry, I would take the time to learn the basics of the industry that would help me design the most intuitive user interfaces in the products here at iRobot."

The key to answering this question with confidence starts with understanding that you are interviewing with iRobot because your interviewer feels that you are a strong candidate for this position. What your interviewer is focusing on with this question is how they could be of most help to you if hired for the job. So, take the time prior to your interview to think about an aspect of the position that would be the most difficult for you to overcome to be up and running at full speed and then take time to explain how you would plan to overcome that hurdle if hired. This structured answer will tell your interviewer that you have put thought to your potential shortcoming with a plan of action.

"Being a team player by nature, I've always considered my first challenge at any new company to be the task of getting to know my colleagues, their work preferences and their work styles. In the same breath, I want them to know who I am and how I best work as part of a team with them. To accomplish this, I would take the initiative to set one on one meetings with individuals that I didn't get to touch base with during my orientation process to get to know them better."

If hired here at iRobot to develop iOS and Android software, when would you use a fragment rather than an activity?

"As a best practice in my development of Android apps in the past, activities are really the complete screen that a user experiences as part of the app. Fragments are really small sub activities that take place within the activity. Because fragments within an app have their own life cycle and receive their own input events within the app, there are specific times where fragments make the most sense to use in development. In my experience, I always use fragments when the app is working with UI components that are going to be uses across multiple activities within the app. As well, fragments have also served very well when using swipe views within the app."

In the development of apps for both iOS and Android, using code to create an activity versus a fragment is a highly debated topic to this day. For this question, your interviewer is looking to hear that you understand what the differences between the two are and when you feel that using a fragment is the proper direction to go. Make sure to speak to the high level overview of what an activity does to an app versus fragments.

"In the past year, I honestly don't recall designing a new app that ran solely on an activity alone. The fragments are almost necessary today to bring life to an app. I use retained fragments to persist across activity restarts within the app and this helps make a user friendly experience for our end users."

What software analysis and design tools do you have familiarity working with?

"As my career and experience in software engineering has grown over the years, I've come to really appreciate and utilize these tools that are available. A great example of this would be my recent education and use of Structured English for designing insurance claim software for a large auto insurer. The simplicity of the structured decisions in the program were a perfect example of a program that could utilize the tool and the end product ended up very functional for our customer."

As a software engineer for iRobot, your interviewer wants to hear that you have experience in utilizing tools that you make you more proficient in your work. Dig back on your past experiences and talk openly about your experiences with the different analysis and design tools that are available to help you be better in the work that you do. In the end, make sure that your interviewer understands that you are proficient in the use of these tools and open to learning and using new tools as well.

"I have great working knowledge in creating and reading data flow diagrams. To help with both our own sales staff and with customers, DFD's have been super helpful and I consider myself very proficient in creating them. I've also recently been introduced to decision tables to aid in product testing. I was working on a new system that involved some very complicated business rules and the decision table helped outline everything perfectly for our testing."

What methods do you use to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in tech?

"I have leveraged a number of sources to stay up-to-date on my knowledge, including LinkedIn Learning and industry sites such as TechCrunch. I'm also active on Github where I'm able to work on projects to grow my knowledge. Quora is a place where I lend my knowledge to others and also read about topics I may not be fully versed in, or want to learn more about. Technology has really benefited me in learning more about technology and that excites me about what the future holds for further learning and development."

With technology constantly changing, employers want to know that they are hiring people who are committed to learning and growing. Be sure to explain to your prospective employer how you stay up-to-date and how you're committed to growing your knowledge as your industry grows. They want to know that they're investing in someone who is also investing in themselves.

"I am newer to my financial services career and have worked very hard to develop a strong portfolio this past year. Currently my portfolio is worth $$. What size of portfolio would I be responsible for at iRobot?"

"As a software developer, I feel that every day something new is blooming with technology, and staying up-to-date with the latest tech stack is of the utmost importance characteristics for me. I have invested in few resources such as LinkedIn, where I can learn about the tools and technologies used by different people. To get more information, LinkedIn learning is a good platform If I wanted to learn more in dept and want to know end-to-end use-cases I prefer Coursera and Udemy. To share my knowledge and understand I use StackOverflow and quora to address questions from others. The last frequent tool which I use is Github to contributed to open source projects and to showcase my projects as well."

Give an example of a time that you used a universal design practice in your work as a UI or UX designer. Why was it important to do this?

"From a very high level, the business success of a program really relies on being universally designed. If we pigeon hole ourselves, a product will only reach a very limited group of end users. But taking that a step further, universal design is the morally right thing to do to help reach people that may not have access to the average program design. Last year, I was part of a project that utilized a voice user interface for users that were deaf or hard of hearing. This simple yet effective design was a huge win for our current customers and in helping drive new business with our groundbreaking software."

In the technology, software and mobile app fields today, accessibility is a huge topic. As a designer with iRobot, you will be expected to help create products that are as accessible as possible to as many end users as possible. In this two part question, talk about why you feel that universal design is important in the work that you will be doing with iRobot and then really sell your ability to do this by giving an example of a time you used a universal design in your previous work.

"Early in my career, the best piece of advice that I receive was from an experience designer and she said that when UX doesn't consider all potential users, we are no longer working on the user experience. We live in a very diverse world and the programs that I've designed for in the past have certainly had the goal to reach a wide audience. With your financial products here at iRobot, this same philosophy applies. Last year, based on some feedback from current customers, we switched our design to include a strong color contract to make the system much more user friendly to color blind users. This was both a simple and very effective change to enhance the look of the program."

What is one unique personality trait you possess that would help you be successful in this role with iRobot?

"From what my parents have told me about me as a young child, passion has been a personality trait that has driven me my whole life. When I tackle something in life, I need to be passionate about it for it to be a success. From my time as a young child up to today, I have been passionate about physical fitness and this has driven me to participate in running and biking races across the country. This same passion in the pursuit of excellence has translated into my career as a software engineer. From tinkering with computer hardware at a young age and learning the internal components of a system to learning how to create and design software, you'll quickly find that my passion to engineer the most unique software here at iRobot will be extremely beneficial to your team."

This question is allowing you to have the floor during your interview to wow your interviewer with something they might not know about you yet from your resume or time so far during the interview. Think about a strong, unique trait that you have that has led to prior success in your field and explain in detail how this will help further you in your career with iRobot. If possible, be very unique in your answer to draw a direct line between your personality and success in this role.

"I would have to say that my humility has been instrumental in getting me to where I am at today in my career. Having worked with one of the largest software companies in the world, egos were certainly high with a lot of my teammates and I have always used my humility to let my work do my talking for me while remaining a friendly and curious colleague to all."

"I have a "never give up attitude" and I always thrive under pressure. Despite all the challenges and hurdles I usually deliver and fulfill my commitment to the task, and for this trait, I have received many recognitions and awards from my previous employer. So I strongly believe that this quality will help me and my team to achieve our common goal."

At iRobot, we rely on a full team effort to deliver top quality products to our customers. Tell me about a time that you worked well as part of a team. Are you comfortable in a similar role here?

"Throughout my career, I've always enjoyed working as part of a larger team on the job and this personal enjoyment started with my love of and participation in team sports like baseball and basketball. Growing up playing sports, I learned that each team member brought a unique skill set that could help us achieve our goals. Through a great coaching staff that knew how to make these individual skills shine, this same philosophy holds true for a team that is looking to design a new software system. I know that my skills as an engineer are just part of the final product and I work very well with designers, architects, analysts and sales to help build the greatest system possible."

While this potential role with iRobot will require your to be an independent worker that can think on your feet, you will also need to work as part of a larger team that is working toward one common goal. Because of this fact, your interviewer will want to hear that you thrive in an environment where you work with team members from other disciplines than you are trained in. In your example, stress to your interviewer that you have excellent communication skills and that you fully understand that every person on a team plays a vital role in the organization's success.

"I am a people person by nature and my current role has me working very closely with our engineering and design staff on writing technical manuals for our products. While I certainly can handle long days at my computer in solitude, my desire to work hand in hand with others really sets me apart from my peers in this field. I have excellent verbal, listening and written communication skills that, if hired here at iRobot, your entire team would appreciate from my first day on the job."

"I have experience working in different levels of organizations starting from a startup to a multinational organization, which includes working with different team sizes as well. From all my past experience it was proven that working together as a team is the key to success, and I thoroughly enjoy working in a team because I believe each individual member of the team possesses different skill sets, which provides me a vast scope to learn and to grow. So I always make myself professionally more approachable so that we will succeed together as a team."

iRobot Interview Questions

Go Back

1. In designing Android software, what is your experience using parcelable versus serializable within an app?
2. What SDLC models are you familiar in working with?
3. Would you say that you are a goal oriented on the job? What would I be able to do as your manager to help you achieve your goals if hired here at iRobot?
4. The next cloud engineer that we hire here at iRobot needs to be able build a system that can handle a high amount of traffic. How would you test our system's ability to handle large amounts of traffic?
5. How do you stay organized and on track when working on multiple projects or duties at the same time?
6. Here at iRobot, we ask our test engineers to follow specific QA protocols. What role do you feel QA plays in software development and testing?
7. How would you handle a situation where a colleague was being very difficult to work with?
8. If you were asked to review a colleague's code that they had written, what key things would you look for?
9. Tell me about a time that there was a delay in the project and how did you handle that delay?
10. What unique values can you bring to iRobot in your user experience design skills?
11. In your mind, when is monkey testing the most effective in testing new software?
12. What experience do you have in the different types of software maintenance?
13. Do you consider yourself stronger in C++, C#, Java, or Python?
14. Talk about a time when things didn't go as planned on the job. What was the situation and what allowed your to persevere in that situation?
15. Tell me about the most interesting project you have worked on this year and the biggest thing you learned from it.
16. We are looking for innovators to join us here at iRobot. Where have you brought innovation in automation to a process in your career?
17. Do you have experience working with data in a cloud computing environment?
18. As a machine learning engineer, how do you avoid the curse of dimensionality in your designs?
19. A huge part of our business here at iRobot is designing software for iOS. In this role, how would you steer away from retain cycles when using closures in Swift programming language?
20. Do you have experience working with different CASE tools? If so, what do you have experience with?
21. This role with iRobot is highly technical. What is your understanding of this position and the responsibilities that come with it?
22. If hired here at iRobot, what do you feel would be the biggest hurdle for you to overcome from the start?
23. If hired here at iRobot to develop iOS and Android software, when would you use a fragment rather than an activity?
24. What software analysis and design tools do you have familiarity working with?
25. What methods do you use to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in tech?
26. Give an example of a time that you used a universal design practice in your work as a UI or UX designer. Why was it important to do this?
27. What is one unique personality trait you possess that would help you be successful in this role with iRobot?
28. At iRobot, we rely on a full team effort to deliver top quality products to our customers. Tell me about a time that you worked well as part of a team. Are you comfortable in a similar role here?

iRobot Interview Questions

1. In designing Android software, what is your experience using parcelable versus serializable within an app?

2. What SDLC models are you familiar in working with?

3. Would you say that you are a goal oriented on the job? What would I be able to do as your manager to help you achieve your goals if hired here at iRobot?

4. The next cloud engineer that we hire here at iRobot needs to be able build a system that can handle a high amount of traffic. How would you test our system's ability to handle large amounts of traffic?

5. How do you stay organized and on track when working on multiple projects or duties at the same time?

6. Here at iRobot, we ask our test engineers to follow specific QA protocols. What role do you feel QA plays in software development and testing?

7. How would you handle a situation where a colleague was being very difficult to work with?

8. If you were asked to review a colleague's code that they had written, what key things would you look for?

9. Tell me about a time that there was a delay in the project and how did you handle that delay?

10. What unique values can you bring to iRobot in your user experience design skills?

11. In your mind, when is monkey testing the most effective in testing new software?

12. What experience do you have in the different types of software maintenance?

13. Do you consider yourself stronger in C++, C#, Java, or Python?

14. Talk about a time when things didn't go as planned on the job. What was the situation and what allowed your to persevere in that situation?

15. Tell me about the most interesting project you have worked on this year and the biggest thing you learned from it.

16. We are looking for innovators to join us here at iRobot. Where have you brought innovation in automation to a process in your career?

17. Do you have experience working with data in a cloud computing environment?

18. As a machine learning engineer, how do you avoid the curse of dimensionality in your designs?

19. A huge part of our business here at iRobot is designing software for iOS. In this role, how would you steer away from retain cycles when using closures in Swift programming language?

20. Do you have experience working with different CASE tools? If so, what do you have experience with?

21. This role with iRobot is highly technical. What is your understanding of this position and the responsibilities that come with it?

22. If hired here at iRobot, what do you feel would be the biggest hurdle for you to overcome from the start?

23. If hired here at iRobot to develop iOS and Android software, when would you use a fragment rather than an activity?

24. What software analysis and design tools do you have familiarity working with?

25. What methods do you use to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in tech?

26. Give an example of a time that you used a universal design practice in your work as a UI or UX designer. Why was it important to do this?

27. What is one unique personality trait you possess that would help you be successful in this role with iRobot?

28. At iRobot, we rely on a full team effort to deliver top quality products to our customers. Tell me about a time that you worked well as part of a team. Are you comfortable in a similar role here?