Applied for a senior embedded systems role. Whole thing took about 5 weeks from first recruiter call to offer.
Round breakdown: Recruiter call (30 min): mostly role fit, clearance eligibility, relocation. they asked straight up if i was okay with the defense mission. not subtle. Technical phone screen (45 min): a C++ problem and some questions about memory layout and interrupt handling. the interviewer was clearly an engineer, not a recruiter, asked good follow-ups. Take-home: given 72 hours, it was a small firmware task with some intentional ambiguity in the spec. i asked two clarifying questions upfront and they responded quickly. the point felt like seeing whether you'd just barrel forward or actually pressure-test the requirements. Virtual onsite (4 rounds, one day): system architecture for a real-time sensor fusion problem, a coding round, a hardware design discussion, and then a behavioral round with a director.
The behavioral round was not soft. she asked specifically about times i disagreed with a product direction and what i did about it. i got the sense that being deferential would not score well. they want people who will push back when something is wrong.
Offer came 3 days after the onsite. they moved fast. the equity conversation was more detailed than i expected, they explained the vesting cliff and secondary market situation clearly.