I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Gentex Corporation (Zeeland, MI) in May 2012
Interview
I interviewed with an HR Representative on the phone first, and then I did an on-site interview during which I interviewed with HR, 3 or 4 engineers and with the hiring manager. They followed up within a few days with an offer, didn't leave me hanging for long. I thought it was odd that HR questioned me on whether my parents were engineers or not.
Two of the interviewers took me to lunch and just chatted socially during lunch. They asked about my hobbies and interests, I think they were trying to make sure I'd enjoy living in a smaller town. I was presented with a code snippet during lunch and asked to find the error, but it was fairly informal and the engineer just wanted to see how I responded to the question. He said it wasn't a deal breaker if I didn't identify the error. I did identify it :)
I rated this interview difficult because they actually had me code on a whiteboard and many companies don't require this type of problem solving during an interview. I wish this was a standard interviewing practice and I think it should be standard for all software engineering positions, but it's not. It made me respect the company and the team more for thoroughly vetting their candidates.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a bit manipulation question, write the C code to implement the solution on a whiteboard. I don't remember the exact question, but things like, given an integer, produce a string encoding the binary value of the integer.
I applied online. I interviewed at Gentex Corporation in Feb 2026
Interview
Applied online. Two days later, asked to take an online skills evaluation, consisting of 6 problems, for which I had to write a C function. The problem statements were poorly written. The coding was fairly easy, mostly array manipulations. No hard core embedded problems, like bit manipulations. I finished 2/6 problems. 2 of the "fails" crashed their system when tested; the other two "fails", my time expired. If I only had 1 or 2 more minutes on each. Two hours after this evaluation, I got the automated rejection.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
6 coding skills problems, to write a short C function, like, counting the number of occurrences of a string in an array of strings, or eliminating a duplicates in an array. Nothing specific to Embedded Software.
I applied online. I interviewed at Gentex Corporation (Grand Rapids, MI)
Interview
It was a few round panels back to back. They had me do some programming questions and asked me some fundamentals. They did a mix of online and in person.
Very lengthy, went through a grand total of 7 interviews over 4 different days. Included technical programming tests, phone interviews, two virtual interviews, and a day of four in-person interviews.
