[markwkw]

Mechanical engineering interviews seem to do the same as software: "Engineers always ask about beam bending, stress strain curves, and conservation of work. Know the theory and any technical questions are easy."

Basically an equivalent of simple algorithmic questions. Not "real" because it's impossible to share enough context of a real problem in an interview to make it practical. Short, testing principles, but most importantly basic thinking and problem solving facilities.

[godelski]

> Mechanical engineering interviews seem to do the same as software:

I've been an engineer in the past (physics undergrad -> aerospace job -> grad school/ml). I have never seen or heard of an engineer being expected to solve math equations on a whiteboard during an interview. It is expected that you already know these things. Honestly, it is expected that you have a reference to these equations and you'll have memorized what you do most.

As an example, I got a call when I was finishing my undergrad for a job from Raytheon. I was supposedly the only undergrad being interviewed but first interview was a phone interview. I got asked an optics question and I said to the interviewer "you mind if I grab my book? I have it right next to me and I bookmarked that equation thinking you might ask and I'm blanking on the coefficients (explain form of equation while opening book)". He was super cool with that and at the end of the interview said I was on his short list.

I see no problem with this method. We live in the age of the internet. You shouldn't be memorizing a bunch of stuff purposefully, you should be memorizing by accident (aka through routine usage). You should know the abstractions and core concepts but the details are not worth knowing off the top of your head (obviously you should have known at some point) unless you are actively using them.

[usrusr]

I've had a coding interview (screen, not whiteboard) fail where the main criticism was that one routine detail I took a while to get right could have been googled faster. In hindsight I still doubt that, given all the semi-related tangents you end up following from Google, but that was their expectation, look up the right piece of example code and recognize the missing bit (or get out right immediately).

For a proper engineering question (as in not software), I'd expect the expected answer to be naming the reference book where you'd look up the formula. Last thing you want is someone overconfident in their from memory version of physics.

[quartesixte]

I had a senior engineer chastise me once for NOT using the lookup tables.

"How do you know your memory was infallible at that moment? Would you stake other people's lives on that memory?"

So what you did on that phone interview was probably the biggest green-flag they'd seen all day.

[glandium]

We live in the age of ChatGPT. It might actually be time to assess how candidates use it during interviews. What prompts they write, how they refine their prompts, how they use the answers, whether they take them at face value, etc.

[epolanski]

I'm a chemist by education, so all my college friends are chemists.

Being asked a theoretical chemistry question at a job interview would be...odd.

You can be asked about your proficiency with some lab equipment, your experience with various procedures and what not.

But the very thought of being asked theoretical questions is beyond ridiculous.

[esafak]

Why, don't they get imposters? You sure run into people who can't code in coding interviews.

[moregrist]

Hmm… I have a twist on this. Chemistry is a really big field.

My degree is in computational/theoretical chemistry. Even before I went into software engineering, it would have been really odd for me to be asked questions about wet chemistry.

Admittedly it would have been odd to be quizzed on theory out of the blue as well.

What would not have been odd was to give a job talk and be asked questions based on that talk; in my case this would have included aspects of theory relevant to the simulation work and analysis I presented.