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đś Meme Of The Week
đââď¸ Interview Practice Question of the Week - Google
What motivates you?
What are your blind spots?
How do you resolve conflict?
Letâs say you are presenting a path forward and a senior engineer disagrees with your conclusion. What do you do?
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The Answer
On the surface, behavioral interviews are used to determine if you would function well within the company mission and values. As such, you should always peruse the the âmissionâ and/or âvaluesâ page of a company before interviewing. Almost every interview, technical or not, will have at least one question pertaining to âwhy us?â If you canât compellingly answer that question, itâs not in the companyâs best interest to hire you, and honestly itâs not in your best interest to work there. At Hardware is Hard, we want you to go somewhere that youâre excited about, somewhere you get butterflies thinking about the interview. Itâs a bit of a hot take, but nerves are a good thing! If youâre not nervous, you probably donât care, and you deserve better than that.
Regardless, from the perspective of âgetting the job,â though company values and mission are important, equally important, is who is interviewing you. Not everyone cares about the company mission and values, and to be honest, to be a good engineer, far more relevant, is how do you interact with others?
As such, the key question that you need to answer for your interviewer by the end of the interview, is really: âDo I want to work with this person?â They may ask you a lot of other things, but itâs all to answer that singular question.
Hereâs the part where the social engineer thrives. Believe it or not, going to that Wine Wednesday, or playing some Catan instead of studying an extra couple hours pays off here. Note that social skills donât help your interviewer decide whether they want to work with you because they anticipate hanging out with you on the weekend or because they simply like you (though that may help, it tends not to have enough of an impact to overcome technical deficiency. Engineers are better about this than most other disciplines from what Iâve seen). It comes down to communication abilities.
People donât want to work with someone who canât communicate effectively. One thing most students realize when they get to college, is that being a good teacher has NOTHING to do with technical competence. Indeed, some would argue that it is in fact an inverse relationship. Having professors operating on the cutting edge of worldwide research who are incapable of succinctly answering a simple question seems to be a regular phenomenon. That can fly in academia somewhat, as options for finding someone specializing in cryogenic transmission electron microscopy using laser phase plate amplification for biological imaging is probably a somewhat limited pool. But as someone with less than 10 years of work experience/specialization, you are replaceable, and as such, being able to communicate effectively is important.
If youâre concerned about being appropriately affable in such a stressful and dynamic environment, a healthy amount of reconnaissance can help you prepare for this. Itâs not something I freely admit, but I usually spend a nontrivial amount of energy before an interview finding out what I can about the person interviewing me. You arenât always given the information for who is conducting the interview, but a first name and a team at the company is usually all it takes. Where did they work previously? How long? What school? This can help you ask particularly poignant questions and show you where you should focus your technical preparations.
Lastly, if you receive a âTell me about a timeâŚâ category of question, know that your goal is to answer with a true & compelling story. Even if you were a complete badass and completed the most epic project in existence, if you arenât able to tell your story effectively, then no one else will care. Sculpting a story properly can be quite difficult, but the general interview advice out there is âC.A.R.â (context, action, result) or âS.T.A.Râ (situation, task, action, result) or any other number of acronyms. What it boils down to is, tell what was the project/why did it exist, what did you do, and what result did it drive? The ability to engage an audience while telling a story will also pay dividends every time you meet someone new, so practice!
Now that we have general advice for behavioral interviews done, here are a few of the more difficult to answer questions weâve received/seen over the years and some strategies for how to answer.
What motivates you?
I refuse to tell you the best answer, because there isnât one. My motivations are particular to me just as yours are hopefully particular to you. That said, there are answers that your interviewer may find more appealing than others. My love of skiing or backpacking, while perhaps gains the possibility of a slight bonding moment, probably has nothing to do with the job. But, if this is a clean energy or conservation company, something more broad like passion for preserving the natural world so my progeny can participate in the activities I like to would make more sense.
My biggest tip, is to always put yourself in your interviewers shoes. Think as though you are the company looking at a candidate (yourself) from the outside. Why ask this specific question?
I have found that this question gets asked to make sure that the company and role can supplement whatever motivates you. If your passion is getting lost in the sauce and digging deep into research, a system oriented role wouldnât serve anyone. If hands-on-hardware motivates you, then a multi-year architecture level research project probably wouldnât be a good fit. How does what motivates YOU match with what the company is offering? Thinking about it, you may also come to the conclusion that this isnât the type of role you want! Then again, personally I think internships are so much fun because there are few negative consequences trying something completely new for a few months, even if itâs not what you thought you wanted.
Be prepared for follow ups based on your past experience. If your past roles are all more architectural product development, and youâre interviewing for a detailed module level design role, hopefully thereâs a reason why. Be honest, and donât be afraid to take a few seconds to think before answering!
What are your blind spots?
This is a really tough one, and akin to the dreaded (but also uncommon, at least in engineering interviews) âwhatâs your biggest weakness?â It is exceptionally easy to get caught off guard with and phrase something in a way youâll regret.
Think through it, what are your weaknesses? What are the concrete action items you can use to improve them? The key here is not to just list weaknesses, but what you can/are doing about them.
What the interviewer is looking for: Do they know how to navigate resources? Do they have the ability to fix things quickly?
There are two categories here, you can either go the technical or the personal route. Feel free to ask the interviewer to clarify whether they mean technically or personally to avoid any misinterpretations (if you do so, prepare for the answer to probably be âbothâ).
Technical blind spots are actually the easier of the two. Think of an area where you donât have a lot of experience that you would like to get better at. If you havenât done very many simulations, say thatâs a bit of a blindspot for you and that youâre taking on a simulation project in your engineering competition team to learn more about the area. Ideally provide details such as some things youâve struggled on in your quest to get better. Note: do not say simulations is your technical blind spot if you are interviewing for a simulation intensive role.
Personal blind spots can be difficult for us to identify as they are, as the name would suggest, in our blind spot. Letâs put ourselves in the interviewerâs position. Why ask this sort of question? Not only does it test your ability to be vulnerable/honest, but it establishes a certain level of self awareness. Everyone has things they would like to get better at, and thatâs okay!
One of my blind spots is that if I get fixated on finishing something, I tend to get tunnel vision. I lose sight of how important it is to the overall project, whether there might be a better way to do it, and whether the ROI on my time is worth it (work smarter not harder). That is NOT how I would phrase it in an interview though. I would say that when I feel passionately about what Iâm doing, Iâll do whatever it takes to get there, and sometimes forget to reevaluate if thatâs the target I should be heading for. To combat this, Iâve been trying to put an item on the schedule every few weeks with key stakeholders to review the project as it relates directly to the requirements/needs, and make sure those requirements are sufficient/necessary in the first place.
How do you resolve conflict?
Letâs say you are presenting a path forward and a senior engineer disagrees with your conclusion. What do you do?
There are 5 things that the optimal answer to this question touches upon:
Give context to my hypothetical design
Understand why the senior engineer objects
Constraints are clear and communicated
Data/analysis to drive decisions
Escalate if low timeline
Most likely, the problem comes down to a misunderstanding. Either we donât understand the engineerâs concern, or they donât understand the design/requirements. Regardless, clarification is required, and thereâs nothing wrong with that. Set a meeting to clear things up.
If they still disagree, really dive into how you are presenting the constraints of the problem. Are they clear and precise? Do you have any data to backup your decision? Can tests be done in the desired timeline to verify the best path forward? Is parallel pathing a desired option?
The last thing this question is testing, is your ability to appropriately escalate an issue. From experience, this is a tough one to know when to do in real life, let alone to provide a well thought out, comprehensive solution in a high stakes interview. Letâs say thereâs no time for testing, and the two parties remain in gridlock. Thatâs one of the reasons managers exist. If itâs low timeline, itâs probably fairly critical to the program. Present the issue without bias, and work with management/experts to align on the best path forward.