Tell me about yourself.

Answer: Im one of those rare San Francisco natives who still lives in the bay
area. I grew up here, went to school here, had a brief stint in Davis to get my
mechanical engineering degree, then I was back in the bay area and I was lucky
enough to get my first job as a robotics engineer after receiving my degree. The
job that I was hired to do ended up utilizing the course specializations that I had
selected, so Ive been lucky so far in doing the things I love to do. My plan is to
continue loving what I'm doing, no matter where I end up in my career.

Ive considered going back to school for a masters in computer science, and
have provisionally accepted into Johns Hopkins school of engineering.

Outline: San Francisco Bay Area native, enjoys outdoor activities

hiking/running/biking.
Highly technical

Where does your boss think you are now

My lunch hour is pretty flexible, so Im currently on a break

Why look for work now?

Ive updated my resume and employment profiles on LinkedIn and other websites
recently because Im interested in a lifetime of learning. An opportunity to work on
challenging technology is in my opinion the best way to do that. That is to say, Im
still learning new things with my current employer, but the on-the-job learning that
I experience happens much less frequently now, at a rate of say once or twice a
month, compared with the everyday learning I experienced in my first couple
years at the company. I want to be surrounded by people smarter than me that I
can learn from, and I think Verb's mission attracts people who are intelligent and
driven to succeed, exactly the kind of people I want to learn from.

How did you learn about this position

I was contacted by Giovanni at the Mullings group, who revealed that Verb was
looking to hire experienced engineers in the robotics, comp sci, and mechanical
engineering fields. I already had some knowledge of Verb, so I knew it was
immediately an opportunity that I wanted to pursue, so through his colleague
Maria, I was able to have this interview with you today.

Why are you interested in working for our company?

Verbs resources, reputation, and partners appear to be in a great position to
stake a very large claim in the surgical automation field. Where others are
attacking from the point of view of just surgical robots, Verb's strategy appears to
me to put surgical robots alongside the machine learning capabilities that Verily
will able to provide. This marriage of robot hardware and learning software, will
put Verb head and shoulders above the competition, who do not have the same
expertise in machine learning.

How long have you been looking for a job? Why are you still? Why have
you yet?
Ive increased my presence relative to recruiters in the last 3 months. Ive been
getting several hits each week, and when something interesting is presented to
me, I request more information and take some phone interviews if they come
along. I havent been actively sending out my resume, so you could say Im
considering the opportunities that are presented to me and taking it one step at a
time.

How did you choose to work in this area?

Initially, when selecting a major, I knew I wanted to work with physical hardware
and so I decided on majoring in mechanical engineering. In the process of
earning my degree, I also discovered the enjoyment of software as well. The
marriage of these two disciplines for me was robotics, so when I was offered a
robotics engineering position at Kawasaki, I knew I just had to accept.
What did you like about your last position?
My current position has a fair bit of flexibility in the type of work that I could do.
My main priority was to support software development projects for Kawasaki's
largest customer, but I also had the occasion to work on other internal software
projects, whether that be robot projects, support utilities for customers, or work

efficiency improvement projects. Because of the flexibility, I'm able to explore

problems and find solutions from a different level. If I think there's a better way of
accomplishing something, I have the flexibility to explore that solution with the
support of my bosses. Through this flexibility, I was able to learn and utilize other
programming languages like python and even c#.

What two areas of the position did you like the least?
I really do enjoy the company that I work at, so its a bit of a difficult question to
answer. I suppose one area that could have improved is that in order to work
effectively in my that position required communicating with overseas Japanese
members who's schedules are ahead by 14 hours. That made the
communication window much tighter for everyone involved in a project.
How would you compare your work to others?
I think the quality of my work is very good, this is supported by the work
evaluations I've received since I began working at Kawasaki, as well as by the
attitude of those that I work with. I'm frequently consulted on the topics of
throughput improvement and kinematics optimization. The engineers that I
supervise generally come away from a discussion with more understanding on a
topic than they had prior. Often when a question needs an answer, I'm a welcome
contributor.
How were you evaluated on your last job?
6 month eval period
Would you recommend your last place of employment?
I would absolutely recommend my current employer to others. Kawasaki was a
great place to work, with interesting problems, a pleasant working environment,
and great people. Unfortunately, I haven't been learning as much there as I did
before, and since its very important for me to continue improving and learning
things, I felt its the right time to find something challenging.
How is this position any different from your last position?
I'll still be programming robots, but the purpose of the robot applications will have
to have a lot more consideration for human health and safety than ever before.
The industry in which these robots will operate is a fast-rising industry, with larger
challenges and hence larger rewards.

How did you help your company increase its sales/profits this year?
Every year, Kawasakis biggest customer brings up the topic of a dozen new
products or iterations of existing products that they want to sell to their
customers. Invariably, those iterations and new products require Kawasaki to do
anything from programming new firmware to completely designing completely
new robots. I helped Kawasaki increase profits this year, and every year, by
ensuring that the software integration between our robots and the customers
systems goes off without a hitch. When that happens, thats at least 2 new
purchase orders for robots.
What is your current salary?
Im sure you will definitely need that information at some point in order to make
an offer, but I feel that it would be in both our best interests to see if my
experiences and accomplishments are valuable before anchoring down a
number.
What has been your biggest disappointment on the job?
There was a robot project undertaken by Kawasaki in the recent past, for which I
was the main software developer in charge of motion planning, collision
avoidance, performance tuning, and all other software related activities. Since I
was the one doing all the tuning and testing initially, I could see that there were
not only a lot of improvements that needed to be made in the hardware, but that
something was fundamentally wrong with the design. I made this
recommendations very clear, and my software manager agreed whole heartedly
with me, but the organizational decision was to make incremental improvements
rather than change any fundamental designs. 18 months later, its considered a
dead project, and its disappointing to me that my strong recommendation, as well
as my managers agreement with me, went ignored, and thousands of collective
man hours were wasted trying to improve on a robot with fundamental flaws.
What have you learned from your job(s)?
As Kawasaki was my first job, I can definitely say I learned a lot in the last 5
years. Ive learned a lot about the intricacies in robot motion planning. Ive
learned about project management and the importance of negotiating schedules
with internal and external customers. Ive learned how to supervise the work of
other engineers. Ive learned that downtime between projects is the best time to
work on side projects. Theres so much that Ive learned at Kawasaki, that Im not
sure if I could do it justice in writing a list.
What things in your job give you a sense of accomplishment?

More recently, acting as a supervisor to 2 newer engineers, I feel a sense of

accomplishment when they come to me for assistance, and I am able to
condense my years of experience of the company, the products, and the
development environment to give them a concise answer which gets them past
whatever technical or mental roadblock stood in their way. The conceptual
models that I have built for myself over the years turn out to be immediately
useful for others who dont have that experience.

What do you consider the most significant accomplishment of your entire

career?
The project that gives me the most significant sense of achievement was an
internally driven improvement that Kawasaki wanted to propose to sell to our
customer. I was tasked with improving an existing robot firmware so that the
customers tool could handle 300wph versus the normal 250wph speed, this was
a 20% speed improvement, and the other Kawasaki engineers working on it were
unsuccessful in meeting this goal. I spent weeks postulating different
optimizations to robot motion, wafer handling routines, tracking down coding
inefficiencies, and ensuring the robot continued to meet Kawasakis stated
performance specifications. The result of that effort was an upgraded firmware
which boosted the throughput of their existing tool from 250 to 315wph. Springing
out of the work I did on that firmware, I was able to recommend hardware
changes which yielded even higher throughput at 415wph. When I think back on
that chain of improvements, I feel a sense of accomplishment.
What was the most interesting suggestion or project you initiated?
In order to verify motion paths, a simulated robot or a real physical robot is
commanded to move and a stream of robot motion log data is collected. This
robot motion log is then processed in NX Cad software. In NX we have a
constrained model of a robot open, which through a internally developed journal
program, we map the motion log data so that as we loop through each motion
point, the robot in NX moves as well. The result of this process is a large solid
model representing the entirety of the robot motion path, a solid model that can
be thrown into a customers tool 3d model and clearances verified. Well it turns
out that the journal program was developed in the early 2000s when our robots
had fewer axes, customer tools had fewer stations, and Kawasaki engineers had
the patience to sit at a computer for hours at a time generating a solid model 1
station at a time. There were numerous inefficiencies I noted every time I used it,
and I set out to improve upon the journal knowing already what features I wanted
implemented. Long story short, most manual processes were automated away,
inefficient coding loops were eliminated, and motion log file batch processing was
added. In this way, the process of verifying motion path clearances was
optimized and over 10x efficiency improvement was measured.

Describe your favorite boss. (Kitano-san)

One of my previous managers knew the importance of giving as much
information as possible before asking for work to begin. He had a breadth of
knowledge necessary to answer low to mid-level questions, but he also knew
where to search for detailed answers and how to direct us in our work. He knew
how to assign projects, and then he knew how to get out of the way when the
work was underway. He enabled his subordinates to do their best work.
Describe the worst boss you ever worked for (Arita-san)
I prefer to focus on peoples strengths typically, so this is a difficult question to
answer. Ive been lucky enough to work with a lot of great people so far in my
career, but I have had one manager who was out of their element in the technical
sense and in the managerial sense. He could be counted on the divvy out the
work, but was inflexible to scheduling changes as he didnt understand the
technical implementation reasons behind the delays. In addition, the way in
which he obtained status updates was to visit your cube a few times every hour
and ask for confirmations. It was a very disruptive process which broke periods of
concentration down to segments where I had to regain focus. I learned that
managerial style has a huge impact on the amount of work that gets done, and
the morale of a team, and the way I supervise my engineers takes that into
account.
How do you handle tension with your boss?
How do you like to be managed?
What types of people try your patience?
What kind of person do you find it easiest to work with?
What does it take for a team to work together successfully?
What are your key skills?
What is the most recently gained skill?
If I only remember one thing about you, what should it be?
What skills do you bring to this job that other candidates arent likely to
offer?
How do you typically manage your time on a typical day? ( What is a typical
day for you?)

How do you prevent email from intruding on your work?

How do you set priorities?
What happens when you get stressed on the job?
How do you handle criticism of your work?
Our company is quite different, how will you adapt?
What communications skills are important in the performance of your job?
How do you make decisions?
How do you solve problems?
What do you do when troubleshooting a problem?
We need someone who can think on their feet, why are you this person?
How do you deal with ambiguity, uncertainty?
How do you evaluate the work of others?
Describe a leader you admire
How do you think your lack of experience in X affect your ability to
perform?
What can you tell me that I dont already know, that would make me hire
you?
What are your greatest strengths?
What contribution do you anticipate being able to make in this position?
What do your coworkers thing your strengths are?
What is your biggest weakness on the job? What do you find most
difficult? Why?
What might your current boss want to change about your work habits?
After six months on the job, what will be the most annoying thing about
you?

How do you define success?

What factors contribute the most to your success on your current job?
How do you explain your job successes?
Define failure
What is the biggest work related mistake youve made? What lesson was
learned?
What acheivements have eluded you?
Describe your personality
100. What personal quality makes you the perfect hire for this position?
What are your pet peeves
Do you prefer team or individual work? Why?
Describe how you establish your credibility
What motivates you to put forth your best effort?
What two or three things are most important to you in your job
What do you think determines a persons progress in a company
For what would you like to be rememberd
How would your last employer describe your work ethic
What have you kept or taken from your employer to which you felt entitled
What do you as an employee owe your boss and what does your boss owe
you?
What tips can you bring to us from your previous company
Describe a major goal you have recently set for yourself
Where would you see yourself in 5 years
What career or business would you consider if you were starting overagain

What skills would you like to develop in this job

Why did you choose this career
What do you hope to be doing 2 years from now
Have you ever taken a position that didnt fit into your long term goal. How
did that work out
What accomplishments have you made so far in reaching long term goals
How do you feel about your career progress to date
What career path interests you within the company
What are your leisure time activities
What is the best book youve read in the last year. What did you like about
it
Tell me about a work group you really enjoyed
Tell me about a business need you fulfilled within a group or a committee
Let me describe the work group you would be joining if we hired you. How
would you fit in, what would you see as your role as a team member?
You have a history of not getting along with a coworker. Your boss asked
the two of your to work together on a project. What do you do.
Tell me how you delegate work effectively
Tell me about the time you helped development of a subordinate
tell me about a typical day at your last job
give me an example of taking care of business day to day but thinking long
range
tell me about the biggest project youve worked on from start to finish
tell me about a project in your last job that you really got excited about
tell me about the last time you found a creative solution to a problem

give me an example of a time when you had an idea for improvement, and
how the company was affected.
Tell me about a time when you used fact finding skills to gain information
to solve a problem.
Tell me about a time you had to juggle priorities to meet a deadline
Describe when you had to make an unpopular decision or announcement
Tell me about the last time you went over budget
Tell me about a failed project
Describe a time when you had to persuade someone to accept your point
of view. How were you successful.
Tell me about the last time you saved the company money
Describe a specific example of taking initiative

Why do you want to work in this industry?

What important trends do you see in our industry
Who are the three major competitors. What advantages do they have over
Verb?
What do you know about verb surgical? How did you get this info?
What do you think is this orgs strength
What should Verb surgical #1 priority be?
What would you do differently if you ran Verb?
Why do you want to work here?
In what ways will our company benefit from hiring you?
What do you know about the position for which you are applying?
Why do you want this job?

How is your experience relevant to this job?

If you are hired, what do you plan to do in the first week/month on the job?
What would you like to accomplish in your first year of hire here?
If you could, what would you choose to change about the position?

How would you describe your ideal work environment? What about the
environments allow you to be effective?
Describe your ideal company to work for
If we hire you, what aspect of the job will you like best?
Which aspect will you like least?
How will the commute effect your work?
Our company believes employees should give back to the community, how
do you feel about that?
What would you say if I told you that you were giving a poor interview
today?
I interviewed several people for the job, why should I hire you?
When would you be available?
How flexible are your working hours?
Each employee in this department works overtime one weekend a month,
how do you feel about this?
What do you expect your starting salary to be?
The salary you are asking for is near the top of the range, why should we
pay you this much?
Why would you consider a paycut to take this job?
How long would it take to move pikes peak
Why are manhole covers round?

What do I do here:
The San Jose office for Kawasaki Robotics is in charge of developing robot
solutions for US, European, and some Asian semiconductor oems. My role within
that office is to be the software engineering point of contact for our biggest
customer. Together with the hardware and electrical engineering teams, I take
the customer requirements and convert them into a list of actionable software
development items. I negotiate features/implementation details with the
customer, and the result is a software package that they can use to drive the
robots that they've purchased. The robot firmware is programmed in what
Kawasaki calls the AS language, which is comparable in general, with the PLC
programming language structured text.

Under my supervision, I have 2 newer engineers who come to me for guidance

on fitting new code within our existing software architecture.
Accomplishments:
GT400 - Existing GT high throughput tool, expanded it to 300wph without
hardware changes. Then I suggested hardware changes that could make the
robot even faster. Recommendations were taken to heart, and throughput of
415wph were reached with customer demonstration.
TTS21 - JT2/4/5/6/7 and JT3, 6 axis scara arm robot.