More job hunting crud

ATK (Thiokol) interviewed me last week. They build rockets. I was invited to tour the facility, and the engineer who interviewed me took me and another grad student from a neighboring school on a separate tour to see the places where engineers actually work. We met hiring managers and talked with some of the guy's colleagues. Of the tour group of students, we were the only ones who were given that special treatment so I felt, well, special. They do rockets. I'll finally be able to say "Yes, Ma'am, I am a rocket scientist."

Then yesterday I had three interviews. Moog, pronounce 'mowg,' does airplane systems; integration, control, and embedded. Now this was an interview where I felt like I nailed it. I rarely come out of interviews feeling like I did well. Less often do I hear things like "Wow, this is a really impressive resume. I think you'd be an excellent fit with us. I'm will definitely recommend your resume be reviewed by the hiring managers. I hope you'll be able to come out for a second interview."

AMI Semiconductor was kinda the same way. They even gave me two technical questions. The first of which was to design a block diagram of an FIR filter (which I did correctly.) The second of which was to explain what happens in a lossless system, where two capacitors are hooked up in parallel and an open switch is between them. Capacitor A is 1 microfarad, 2 volts. Capacitor B is 2 microfarad, 6 volts. When the switch is thrown, what happens? Got that one too. They seemed pretty impressed, and said "The next step, now that you've demonstrated some basic knowledge, is to bring you out to AMI for the next set of interviews."

The last one was for NAVAIR, which is basically the Navy, and it was short and chock full of the same BS questions that never lead anywhere and don't allow a candidate or an interviewer to give or get the full scope of what someone can offer.

I feel really excited. It felt good to be wanted.