I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Aurora Innovation (Palo Alto, CA) in Mar 2019
Interview
I applied for a full-stack engineer position. I received a call from a recruiter a couple days after applying. Next, I did a technical phone screen that was fairly easy and was invited for an onsite interview in Palo Alto.
The onsite consisted of 4 interviews: 2 whiteboard coding, 1 system design, and 1 domain chat with the hiring manager. The system design question seemed very reasonable. The hiring manager was friendly. The 2 whiteboard challenges were unusually difficult. I have done several whiteboard interviews before but never received questions this hard which threw me off. After the interview I went home and solved the first white board problem in ~1hr on my laptop and even with concise code, it would be hard to fit the full solution on a whiteboard. I don't feel like these 2 whiteboard interviews were a fair evaluation of my skills.
Advice to interviewers: Please make the phone screen difficulty more comparable to onsite so that fewer candidates face failure and waste time at the onsite.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I signed a NDA, so I can't say exactly. Just know that these are harder and more open-ended than typical leet code questions. Also make sure to fully understand the question being asked before diving in.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Aurora Innovation in Feb 2026
Interview
Process was recruiter screen → 60 min C++ technical interview.
The recruiter screen was mostly background discussion and role fit. They were specifically interested in experience with computer vision, calibration, sensor systems, and C++.
The technical round focused heavily on C++ fundamentals rather than LeetCode-style trick questions. Topics included pointers/references, stack vs heap allocation, memory management, STL usage, debugging thought process.
I applied online. I interviewed at Aurora Innovation
Interview
It was a very straightforward process which involved classic technical conversation/questions, system design, and a coding section. Overall, the folks I talked to seemed smart and capable and the questions were valid for the role. I applied online, interviewed with their recruiter very shortly after and the rest of the interviews played out pretty quickly after. There was a bit of disorganization about how the process was unfolding on their end but we figured it out.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Signed an NDA so I can't share specifics but there was system design and coding.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Aurora Innovation in Aug 2025
Interview
Recruiter screen, then coding screen on coderpad.io. Couldn't solve their dsa question in time in 45 minutes, so no offer. If I had focused and done all the problems in the Neetcode 150, I would've passed, so this is my fault.
