Interview Question

Verdo

"You go to an appliance store and purchase a toaster. When you get home and open up the box, that says, "Online ready." Tell us a bit more about this world in which your toaster is online ready."

A question I have been asked in a pre-screen for a job in a large tech company. I was wondering if anybody has any specific takes on how to answer it.

I believe that they are just talking about supporting more and more devices in the future and would like me to expand on that

Stheno

They are testing your ablity to take a weird scenario and apply it.

If I got that thrown at me, I'd think about the fact that having online access to my toaster would mean I could activate it on the way home and have hot toast waiting for me when I got in, but I'd want a kettle that did the same so I wouldn't have to wait to make tea to go with it

Irish_Elect_Eng

"And of course the toaster would be able to monitor your stock of bread, butter and marmalade, not to mention ham and cheese to order more automatically when the larder was empty."

I would be dissapointed that I had to go to the store to buy it :-)

These sort of questions are falling out of favor somewhat in many industries, but may still be used for more creative roles.

Mrs OBumble

I'd assume it was more about supportability: so the company can monitor the toaster's performance and send you a "take toaster for repair" message when efficiency falls ... so it's really about selling you a better toaster, and market-researching your toasting habits.

stevenmu

You could monitor the toaster status remotely, for e.g. you might be able to see a progress bar on your TV while you're watching netflix, or it might send an alert to your phone when it's about to pop. You could control the toaster remotely too, so if you're watching football in one room you could turn it on just before half-time, then when half-time arrives the toaster will pop and you can go and butter it and arrive back with a nice hot plate of toast for the second half.

It could upload data to the internet, or to apps. It could be used for gamification, you could compete with your friends to see who can eat the most toast in a month, or it could connect to a diet/health app so if you eat 8 slices of toast it'll tell you to run an extra mile next time you're exercising. Or even just post your toast eating habits directly to facebook/twitter.

It could be one of those american toasters that can toast all kinds of things, so if you put in a bagel or a scone or whatever it will download the correct toasting times. Or if it's one of those fancy toasters that can burn an image onto your bread, it could download a new image every day.

Good luck with the interview, and when it gets to the part where you get to ask them questions, make sure you ask when they're releasing this toaster because I really want one

wexfordman2

stevenmu wrote: »

You could monitor the toaster status remotely, for e.g. you might be able to see a progress bar on your TV while you're watching netflix, or it might send an alert to your phone when it's about to pop. You could control the toaster remotely too, so if you're watching football in one room you could turn it on just before half-time, then when half-time arrives the toaster will pop and you can go and butter it and arrive back with a nice hot plate of toast for the second half.

It could upload data to the internet, or to apps. It could be used for gamification, you could compete with your friends to see who can eat the most toast in a month, or it could connect to a diet/health app so if you eat 8 slices of toast it'll tell you to run an extra mile next time you're exercising. Or even just post your toast eating habits directly to facebook/twitter.

It could be one of those american toasters that can toast all kinds of things, so if you put in a bagel or a scone or whatever it will download the correct toasting times. Or if it's one of those fancy toasters that can burn an image onto your bread, it could download a new image every day.

Good luck with the interview, and when it gets to the part where you get to ask them questions, make sure you ask when they're releasing this toaster because I really want one

If you ever design toasters, let me know, I want one just like that!

Nody

I'm surprised people don't take it further in integration; I'd talk about how it updated to my online agreement for my house insurance (and they added on a $1 on my yearly fee for fire hazard increase), how it's posted on my facebook newsfeed and as noted above downloads the correct type of tosting length based on what I put in it from the bar code I scanned from the bread bag.

It also let me look at several toast images online and let me rate them to set up my personal toast profile for any bread; the profile can be accessed on any other toasters that are connected from the same db by the use of my personal access code to ensure I always get the toasts done as I want them anywhere. It keeps tab on how many toasts I've had of each bread type to inform the shop when they should pack in another bag to ensure I don't run out based on my average consumption of the bread.

I could go on here but you get the picture.

Frank Black

I have a subscription to Stuff magazine. They are always writing articles about 'The Thingternet' or 'the internet of things', which is a future where everyday objects are all connected to the internet and can all communicate with one another and you can communicate with them. You can see it starting now with lightbulbs/radios/fridges etc and according to this article in the Economist - http://www.economist.com/news/21566428-things-rather-people-are-about-become-biggest-users-internet-welcome - there are currently one billion objects already connected world-wide.

I would have though that is what the question was referring to.

MouseTail

StevenMu and Nody have been shortlisted, cannot choose between the two, am considering hiring them both and having them work collaboratively to create the dream toaster to being to world domination.