Multiple recruiters reached out to me about the role. When I talked with one of them during the initial screening call i felt that recruiter was very rude to speak with. It was not a normal phone screen which I was used to. Recruiter kept giving rude answers to my questions.
She told me that I can only do the technical screen in python or C++.
Generally companies don't care which programming language you use but Aurora is very different in that scenario.
Very Bad experience with the recruiter. Recruiters are not trained on how to talk with the candidates at all.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Can you do the technical phone screen in Python or C++
I interviewed at Aurora Innovation (San Francisco, CA)
Interview
Recruiter call, then 1 hour coding screen then onsite that contained two more coding screens, a systems design round then a behavioural with manager. Overall process was reasonable and everyone was nice to talk to
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design Spotify, then couple Leetcode medium questions
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.
Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Aurora Innovation with 3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 40% positive. To compare, the company-average is 45.7% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 29 days to get hired, when considering 20 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Aurora Innovation overall takes an average of 28 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Aurora Innovation as a Software Engineer according to 20 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 43%
One on one interview: 23%
Skills test: 17%
Presentation: 7%
Group panel interview: 3%
IQ intelligence test: 3%
Personality test: 3%
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