Skip to contentSkip to footer
  • Community
  • Jobs
  • Companies
  • Salaries
  • For employers
      Notifications

      Loading...

      Elevate your career

      Discover your earning potential, land dream jobs, and share work-life insights anonymously.

      employer cover photo
      employer logo
      employer logo

      MathWorks

      Engaged employer

      About
      Reviews
      Pay and benefits
      Jobs
      Interviews
      Interviews
      Related searches: MathWorks reviews | MathWorks jobs | MathWorks salaries | MathWorks benefits
      MathWorks interviewsMathWorks Principal Software Engineer interviewsMathWorks interview


      Glassdoor

      • About / Press
      • Awards
      • Blog
      • Research
      • Contact Us
      • Guides

      Employers

      • Free Employer Account
      • Employer Centre
      • Employers Blog

      Information

      • Help
      • Guidelines
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy and Ad Choices
      • Do Not Sell Or Share My Information
      • Cookie Consent Tool
      • Security

      Work With Us

      • Advertisers
      • Careers
      Download the App

      • Browse by:
      • Companies
      • Jobs
      • Locations
      • Communities
      • Recent posts

      Copyright © 2008-2026. Glassdoor LLC. "Glassdoor," "Worklife Pro," "Bowls" and logo are proprietary trademarks of Glassdoor LLC.

      Followed companies

      Stay ahead in opportunities and insider tips by following your dream companies.

      Job searches

      Get personalised job recommendations and updates by starting your searches.

      Principal Software Engineer Interview

      30 Oct 2012
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Natick, MA
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at MathWorks (Natick, MA) in Oct 2012

      Interview

      The process began with a 1 hour phone interview with the hiring manager. That discussion centered around reviewing my background and experience and also my goals and expectations. The next step was a phone interview with an engineer on the team to focus on technical issues. We spoke over the phone and used a shared Google Docs document which they had pre-populated with some sample code. The sample code was a class that represented a collection of data and had an insert() function and a display() function. The idea was to have the display() function be called whenever the data is changed (via insert()). The suggestion was given that there was a cleaner way of handling this and the engineer kept pointing out that there was a problem with needing to reference from a different file -- but what they had in their mind was the need for an Observer pattern. Never did they mention that what they wanted was the ability to have multiple listeners so I thought this problem was not setup very well -- especially because I'm familiar with observer pattern and have used it many times to solve problems that required multiple disconnected listeners. Next I was asked to go to the office for a full day of on-site interviews. The recruiter did a good job of explaining how the interview process would work and the reason for asking me to do a presentation, which all candidates at MathWorks are asked to do. I was asked to make a presentation for the first hour, which would be to all of the members of the team I was interviewing for. The contents of the presentation was asked to be 5 to 10 minutes on my background, education, and experience, followed by 30 to 40 minutes explaining in depth a project that I'd worked on previously. This made sense to me since those questions are asked repeatedly in most one-on-one interviews and the presentation allowed going over that only once before doing one-on-one interviews for the rest of the day. However, the presentation did take about two full days to prepare, including incorporating feedback from the recruiter and hiring manager prior to the interview. And I was also dissapointed that I had specifically asked ahead of time if I would have access to Chrome or Firefox for a demo of the project I was explaining, but during the presentation I had only IE and was asked to give the demo anyway, which I should have not done since the product I demo'd does not work well in IE and that looked worse than no demo at all -- I should have refused and pointed out that they promissed me the proper environment. The rest of the day went well with the one-on-one interviews. Everyone we very friendly and supportive. They all asked very good questions, some about general development processes, some about technical issues -- although I was not asked to work on any coding problems at all which surprised me. In the end, what I found troubling was that during the entire process I recieved almost no feedback on what they were thinking about the mountain of information I was providing. I did get one comment about my code being "overly complex" but other than that everyone was of a positive and supportive attitude but gave no indications that might allow me to better explain my situation. The recruiter notified me via email that they did not think I was the right fit. I asked the recruiter, who mentioned in the email that we should stay in touch about any possible future opportunities, if I was not a good fit for the particular group I interviewed with or for MathWorks as a whole, but I was completely ignored. I guess once they're done with you they're done with you.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      There were many, many questions. But no coding exercises beyond the technical phone meeting described above.
      Answer question
      3

      Other Principal Software Engineer interview reviews for MathWorks

      Principal Software Engineer Interview

      28 Apr 2015
      Anonymous employee
      Natick, MA
      Accepted offer
      Positive experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. I interviewed at MathWorks (Natick, MA) in June 2014

      Interview

      Day long interview process. You are asked to provide a technical presentation, which is followed by one-on-ones. Interviewers are selected from different teams providing you multiple opportunities to show your strengths.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      What is metaprogramming?
      Answer question

      Bowls

      Get actionable career advice tailored to you by joining more bowls.

      Company Bowl sample

      Want the inside scoop on your own company?

      Check out your Company Bowl for anonymous work chats.