I applied online and 3 months later a hiring manager at Cypress contacted me. We spoke on the phone and he asked about my work history, projects, and education. We then scheduled an in person interview.
Prior to the interview I was sent an email with a check list of things I needed to do before hand. There was a questionnaire, which had about 17 personality questions. The time commitment for me was rather significant, nearly four hours. In addition, there was a company info packet that needed to be reviewed. The packet described what the interview process would be like, company history and facts, and benefits (it looked like they had great benefits).
The interview was on par with other interviews I've been to as far as questioning. It had your typical what projects have you worked on, what do you do, why do you want to work for us kind of questions, and some rudimentary technical ones.
The interview however began with a 1-on-1 with the hiring manager, followed by a 1-on-1 with a senior engineer, and ending with a "wolf pack" interview with 3 other staff engineers. As part of their corporate policy, an executive must be a part of the interview process before a final determination is made. However, no one was available for my interview that day. Overall it took the entire morning, from 9-1. At the end the hiring manager kindly asked if I wanted to go to lunch with some of the guys. I had to refuse due to a prior arrangement. He let me know that he'd call me within a few days to try and schedule the executive interview.
What followed was nearly a dozen emails between the hiring manager and a receptionist (administrative associate) attempting to schedule an executive interview, a couple more phone conversations with the hiring manager, a phone interview with an executive, and an additional in person interview with another executive. Through all of which the hiring manager continually asserted I was a top candidate.
Toward the end of my rigmarole of an interview process, I was a bit skeptical about taking the position and it might've shown. At one point I had considered the troubles they were having was part of an exercise to see how much I would put up with... I had also considered that the issues they were having communicating and scheduling activities internally, might reflect how day to day operations would be executed -- poorly scheduled/planned, continually changing, up in the air, etc.
But my overall feeling was that it was your typical corporation, with some real genuine, good people working there.