engineering applied scienceembedded firmwareforce feedbackhapticsreal time controlunreal unity
Complete evaluation framework
What to assess and how to score it
Review the evidence signals before interviewing. Then use the anchored descriptions—not instinct alone—to choose the score that best matches each answer.
01
Evaluation factor
Technical depth
35% weight
Probe haptic rendering depth: god-object or penalty-based contact models, 1 kHz control loops, passivity and stability, LRA versus voice-coil driver behaviour, OpenHaptics, Chai3D or Interhaptics APIs.
Evidence to listen for
Explains the physics or mechanism behind their work, not just the tooling
Names the standards, tolerances, and constraints they designed against
Can defend a design decision under follow-up questions
Distinguishes what they personally engineered from what the team delivered
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
Cannot explain the fundamentals of their own stated specialism.
2
Needs Improvement
Knows the vocabulary but not the underlying mechanism; struggles under follow-ups.
3
Satisfactory
Solid working knowledge for the role; depth thins out on edge cases.
4
Very Good
Strong command of the domain; explains trade-offs and defends decisions well.
5
Excellent
Explains stability limits of their control loop, names actuator classes worked with, and derives why a rendered wall buzzed at given stiffness.
02
Evaluation factor
Work that shipped
30% weight
Ask which shipped devices or titles carried their haptic code: VR controllers, surgical simulators, teleoperation rigs, automotive touch panels; get build targets, latency budgets and effect libraries.
Evidence to listen for
Names specific programmes, parts, or systems that reached production or field use
States their own scope inside the project
Can give measured outcomes: yield, cycle time, cost, failure rate
Explains what went wrong and what they changed
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
No delivered work; experience is coursework, lab-only, or purely observational.
2
Needs Improvement
Contributed to projects but cannot say what shipped or what their part was.
3
Satisfactory
Has delivered real work; outcomes described without numbers.
4
Very Good
Names shipped work and their scope, with some measured results.
5
Excellent
Names shipped hardware or titles, quantifies end-to-end latency achieved, and describes the reusable effect library or middleware they left behind.
03
Evaluation factor
Diagnosis under uncertainty
20% weight
Test debugging of felt-but-unmeasured faults: perceived lag with clean logs, actuator heating, aliasing in waveform playback, USB or BLE jitter, thread priority starvation on target hardware.
Evidence to listen for
Describes a real failure they chased to root cause
Shows a method: isolate variables, reproduce, measure, eliminate
Distinguishes correlation from cause
Says what they ruled out and why, not only what the answer turned out to be
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
No diagnostic method; guesses or escalates immediately.
2
Needs Improvement
Trial and error with no structure; cannot explain how they narrowed the cause.
3
Satisfactory
Reasonable method on familiar problems; less structured on novel ones.
4
Very Good
Clear systematic approach with a real root-cause story.
5
Excellent
Describes instrumenting with accelerometers, scopes or trace tools to isolate a haptic artefact, separating perception complaints from measured signal defects.
04
Evaluation factor
Working across the org
15% weight
Assess collaboration with hardware and firmware engineers on actuator selection and mounting, plus how they translated designer intent into tuned waveforms and ran perceptual user testing.
Evidence to listen for
Explains technical constraints to non-technical stakeholders without condescension
Has negotiated scope, cost, or timeline with manufacturing, product, or suppliers
Documents decisions so others can act on them
Takes review feedback without defensiveness
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
Cannot communicate outside their specialism; dismissive of other functions.
2
Needs Improvement
Communication gaps cause rework; avoids stakeholder contact.
3
Satisfactory
Works adequately with other teams; documentation is thin.
4
Very Good
Communicates clearly across functions; reliable collaborator.
5
Excellent
Shows concrete negotiation with EE and industrial design over mounting or power, and cites tuning sessions run with designers or test participants.
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