My experience interviewing with Huawei Vancouver for an ML research role: strong mismatch between how it was pitched and how it was evaluated [D]

I want to share an interview experience anonymously in case it helps others on the job market.

I was approached about a Vancouver ML role that was presented to me as research-oriented. The recruiter told me the team had looked at my research and that I should be ready to discuss my projects, so I expected a conversation about modelling, research ideas, and fit.

That is not how the interview felt. It was much more focused on trivia-style and coding-style questioning, with very little real engagement with my research or how I think about problems. The overall process felt much narrower and more one-sided than what had been communicated beforehand.

What bothered me was not that they wanted a different skill set. That is completely fair. The problem was the mismatch between how the role was framed and how the interview was actually run. I was also left confused about the publication angle, because the role gave the impression of being research and publication connected, but the interview did not make it feel that way in practice, and they could not name any recent publications they had that they were proud of when I asked.

My takeaway is simple: in ML hiring, some roles are described as research roles, but the actual evaluation is aimed at something quite different. That can waste a candidate’s time, especially if they were contacted based on a research profile.

My advice is to ask very directly what the interview will focus on, how research-oriented the team really is day to day, and whether your background is actually what they want before entering the process. I did all this, and was misled.

Has anyone else here had a “research” interview that turned out to be something else entirely?