Was contacted for an initial phone screen, which lasted about 1 hour. Only one interviewer actually joined the call, with the second joining about halfway through. The second interviewer was obviously in the car driving somewhere and not really engaged in the conversation or familiar with my resume. The position was for a machine learning engineer, but based on the questions they seemed to actually want a control systems engineer. The first interviewer asked mostly about my background and experience. My background is in theoretical robotics, which the interviewer repeatedly implied she did not think qualified as "real" robotics. The posting I applied to was listed as being in Bedford MA, but about halfway through the interview was told it was actually for McLean, VA. Overall a disorganized and strangely antagonistic phone call.

The interview takes around 30 minutes. It starts with a self-introduction. Then the techniques questions. Lots of ML models, the optimization methods, and why you choose this model. Then common questions like why you choose MITRE?