r/ECE • u/Tedla_Inf • 1d ago

RF interview has a live coding portion and I'm rusty. How to be upfront?

I just landed a hiring manager interview for an RF role. The recruiter says it ends with a brief coding session (C/C++ or Python, "basic skills") and explicitly asked me to say upfront if I'm not comfortable coding, since many EEs haven't coded in a while.
My plan is to reply: "I'm comfortable with c++ but rusty. I'd like about a week to refresh"

For those who've hired or interviewed for RF roles:
*Does admitting rustiness hurt me, or does the recruiter's wording mean it's expected and fine?
*Is asking for a week reasonable, or does delaying cost me momentum against other candidates?
*What does "basic" actually mean here? (strings, arrays, loops)? Or RF-flavored, like parsing S-parameter or sweep data, dB/linear conversions, numpy, basic plotting?
*If you had one week, what would you drill?

Any firsthand experience with these hardware-team coding screens or other advice is much appreciated

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u/abccbabcac 1d ago

depends. have you boasted about your coding skills on your resume, job application, or initial screening? if this a coding heavy role, then it could hurt to be rusty. if it's just a nice-to-have skill for the role, then very likely a no big deal.

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u/Tedla_Inf 1d ago

Thanks for the response.
This is the initial screening.
On the resume, it’s just listed as a skill with no description to proficiency or mentioned in a project.

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u/bgibbz084 15h ago

I usually asked basic problem-solving questions, and don’t care what language the answer was given in or if compiled.

With AI these days, coding skills matter very little so they aren’t going to care most likely if you’re rusty. I stopped asking programming questions last year to interviewees.