I interviewed over 6 weeks. All interviews were remotely held. Four interviews. The first was with the would-be direct report. Second was with his boss. The third was a presentation of a quantitive model with four Ascend employees. The fourth was a technical question interview + normal interview with higher ups. There was a lot of miscommunication and blunders by the interviewers during the process. But these things happen when people are busy. I’ve has the same experience interviewing with Apple. It’s difficult to gives tips for the technical questions because they were remarkably simple - probably too simple. And it wasn’t clear that the interviewers were sure about what the solutions actually were. Probably no prep. From the whole process all I can say is: know basic python, know basic energy modeling, have confidence in the model you present, and hope they like your personality. There was no indication of hard skills required.

It started with a first round call that I received from the VP of operations. Then went to a second round presentation that I had to prepare for the managers. This was the most obnoxious part. As someone already busy with work, it was difficult to pull together a 20-minute presentation. I got an email saying I did not receive an offer at the end of the week.