I was never formally interviewed by Cadence. The manager hired me used to work in the same company in my previous job. So we know each other very well. Also, being educated as an electrical engineer, I was very familiar with Cadence's product and line of business. So I took the opportunity to join and moved on to negotiation of salary.

They first met me at my school. I did a presentation about my PhD work. It went well because that’s my work. Soon I got an on-site interview. The interview was easy, because again it’s all about my PhD work. They also asked about how I can help them to make their product better. I described my solutions and they seemed convinced by me. Several interviewers were impressed by my work and past honors and showed strong desire of having me working there. For technical questions, they somewhat asked algorithms while I described my work. Also, they asked software engineering questions as well. What surprised me is that they didn’t reimburse me my travel expenses on the meals. They paid the airfare and hotel in advance, though. Not sure if Cadence always did that. But other companies I did interviews reimbursed the meals I spent. And their HRs just pretended not receiving my mails about this issue. So try to eat cheaper meals because it may be on your tab.