It was about an hour long with basic personality questions and then I was hired the next day. I think the referral policy makes anyone who gets the bonus really try to get your hired and it works.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What was a challenge that you had and how did you overcome it?
The process took 2 days. I interviewed at AT&T (San Ramon, CA) in Jan 2009
Interview
The interview process was fairly straightforward. It consisted of an overview of the responsibilities and the position. It also included a skills test based on what they were looking for. Particularly they had an exam discussing technical concepts covering: Java, Oracle, Systems Administration. The questions ranged from very basic such as what is a POJO? to some decent items as Describe in Oracle how to determine what a long-running SQL is actually doing?
There were 5 different individuals ranging from technical leaders, to project leader, to group leader and technical experts. The HR individual while very pleasant was the least knowledgeable about the particular position.
They described the position and what it did. They were also very good about describing the company culture, the atmosphere and the career path progression. They were also very clear that their company did very little professional hiring with my case being the exception.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
In a Unix environment what are the top 3-5 considerations for performance monitoring a Java application that has access to a local Oracle instance (located on the same server). Please be as specific as possible (i.e. commands, locations, etc.)