I'm to interview my next supervisor...

[jcarmody]

I have to interview several people over the next week to fill a position one level above me. This person will be responsible for developing ATEs but will also have management responsibility for satisfying all ATE/test requirements in the plant. The resumes I've read so far don't have any LabVIEW experts and I'm worried! I'm not an EE and only have a few years under my belt doing Test Engineering, so I don't know what specific questions to ask.

I read the existing posts on interviewing to fill a LabVIEW developer position, but this isn't the same.

What can you suggest?

Thanks,

Jim

[Mark Yedinak]

You will want to ask questions related to specific experiences. Stay away from questions with hypothetical or opinion based answers.

Here are some examples questions you could ask.

Development skills:

1. Describe the architecture of the last/largest/most successful automated system you designed? In hindsight what features were advantageous and what features could have been improved?

2. When designing a system do you have a general architecture you use? Can you describe it?

3. Describe a particularly difficult technical challenge you had to overcome and how did you overcome it?

4. Ask specific questions related to your field if necessary.

5. Have you any experience working with designs relying on data flow for control? (This would help to determine how easily they could transition to using LabVIEW for programming)

Management skills:

1. What was the largest number of people you managed?

2. What type of things do you do to encourage team building for the teams you manage?

3. Can you give an example of a management problem you had to solve and how you solved the issue?

4. Can you provide an example of how you mentor team members to develop their skill set?

Those are just a few of the types of questions I would ask. You can tailor them more to your specific environment or job as needed.

[crelf]

From what you've described, I don't think that having LabVIEW experience is really too important (although it sounds like a hybrid role - maye it's time to talk to your management about trying a different team model). Sounds like you're more after a systems engineer - someone who knows how to develop the requirements and design, then supervise it through development, then pick it up again for design of the test plans, etc?