How to tell who's the "best engineer"?

[coppice]

One of my techniques for design positions was to say "a manufacturer wants us to design a traffic light controller for a 7yo toy car/road set. What do you suggest?". Then we would have a leading conversation based on what they thought of and what the company would do. That two way flow of information was most revealing.

Posing a simple project can be a good approach. For experienced engineers, asking them to talk about a previous project can flush out a lot of useful information about the person. Especially when you are trying to figure out the level of seniority that enjoyed in their previous work.

[tggzzz]

One of my techniques for design positions was to say "a manufacturer wants us to design a traffic light controller for a 7yo toy car/road set. What do you suggest?". Then we would have a leading conversation based on what they thought of and what the company would do. That two way flow of information was most revealing.

Posing a simple project can be a good approach. For experienced engineers, asking them to talk about a previous project can flush out a lot of useful information about the person. Especially when you are trying to figure out the level of seniority that enjoyed in their previous work.

Very true. Any interviewer that didn't/couldn't do that would be a Big Red Flag that it would be a bad place to work.

At one interview I explained all the hardware and software I'd created. The interviewer clearly hadn't been listening since he then asked me if I was "really a hardware or software engineer". I instantly switched off, and was merely polite for the rest of the interview.

[pardo-bsso]

Some background. I live in Argentina and in particular, the town where I am, well... there aren't many EEs around or even related companies out there, so it is just not a possibility to build meaningful relationships with the community, simply because there isn't one. There's no elder with a beard to go ask technical questions to and in terms of buying equipment and components, the borders are virtually shut, so while possible, it is not easy nor cheap to buy stuff.

Where are you now? come along to embebidos32, we are a cool bunch of people. I've found that hanging around university research labs lending a hand from time to time gave me access to a lot of interesting things to expand my knowledge and a pool of people that's invaluable.

The book Analog SEEKrets has nice tips too.