What can I expect in the interview process?
Feryal: The interview process at DeepMind can vary depending on the particular role you’re applying for. From my experience, the interview process for a Research Scientist role consisted of four phases:
Phase one – initial chat with the recruitment team
This is to cover your background, experience, the motivation for applying and future plans. At this stage, you will also have the opportunity to ask any questions that you may have about the role or the interview process.
Phase two – technical interviews
This part of the process involves several sessions – including one with a technical quiz that covers a large breadth of topics in computer science, statistics, mathematics and machine learning. It’s key that you revise broadly for this session! At this stage there will also be a coding interview where you [in your chosen language] will have to work through a few questions and a specific problem with the end goal of coming to a solution implementation.
Phase three – research interviews
This stage is made up of various short [i.e. ~30min] interviews with researchers and leads about your specific research background and interests. Here you will have the opportunity to give a talk about your research, which gives the interviewers a better idea of your overall research direction. At this point, try to show your technical understanding of the field and feel free to bring up your own achievements and research ideas. It’s not necessary, but I would also suggest reading through recent papers published by the DeepMind team to try to frame your strengths better!
Phase four – culture interview
Towards the end of the interview process, you will once again connect with the recruitment team to discuss DeepMind’s culture and mission. I recommend that you read about DeepMind’s mission and think about how your career goals can fit within it.