Last month I had a phone interview with a company that makes engineering software. This company is to engineering software what Microsoft is to operating systems, although to my knowledge, this company has no direct competitor. So needless to say, I was floored to get a call from them and hear that they liked my resume.

That feeling lasted until about four weeks ago, which is when I actually had the phone interview. It was technical interview, which I'd never had before, but I've heard plenty of horror stories from friends and co-workers, so I'd determined that it's basically the pee-in-your-pants type of interview because typically one of the following two things occurs: either they ask you to derive some really advanced concept that you can't even pronouce, so you have to fess up and say that you have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, or worse, they ask you something completely fundamental and straight forward but you have an enormous brain fart and draw a complete blank on the answer. Either way, chances of you looking like an idiot are high.

Anyway, well before this interview, I was told what general topics we'd cover:

1. Basic math (algebra and calculus)
2. Computer programming concepts
3. One programming language (C, C++, or Java)
4. This company's own software/programming language
5. Signal processing or controls

When my interviewer called, he skipped all the usual chit chat at the beginning and got right down to business.

Question #1: "What is an even function?"
Me: %*&@!!! "Uh... um... Well, I know that cosine is an even function!"

And it just went downhill from there. I think that was the only "basic math" question that I really boned, but C programming didn't go swimmingly either. If he had asked me those questions this time two years ago, I would have been all over the answers about pointers, addresses, and #include files; however, since I've been programming exclusively NOT in C over the past two years, that section of my brain has since been overwritten. The only section that I didn't screw up was the one about this company's own software.

It was too bad, since after all the embarrassment, the guy answered some of my questions and it turns out that the job seems pretty neat. You could certainly spend the majority of your time coding if you wanted, but you could also work on demos for customers, go to trade shows, and lead training sessions for engineers in industry.

So you can imagine my surprise when I got a call back the next day saying that I passed the phone interview. All I could gather from this is that they're apparently looking for people who can a) operate a telephone, and b) not curse on said telephone when asked basic questions to which they don't know the answer. The next step is the on-site interview, which happens this Friday. And yes, there will be more technical questions. So yes, I will be studying!