I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Applied Intuition in Mar 2025
Interview
Fairly standard interview process -- went through 4 rounds of interview, including initial 2 rounds over phone, one full day at the location, followed by half a day with manager. Interview feedback was. very prompt and the team seemed very knowledgeable and rigorous in the interview. My technical experience with the interview was very positive. They seem to be doing some genuinely cool work.
However, the dealing with the recruiters was an entirely different experience. I was passed around 3 different recruiters handling my interview process, and towards the end when I was made an offer, the experience seemed very much like dealing with a used car salesperson. The recruiter was extremely harsh and borderline rude in the negotiation process. They often claimed that applied pays 90 percentile in equity and above 50 percentile in cash compensation. After the final negotiated offer, they are paying well udner the industry average. The equity seems more around 20-30 percentile (I am comparing with other tech/self driving companies), and cash compensation seems to be around 25 percentile as well from my understanding of the industry. Ended up declining the offer, and the recruiter did not even have the courtesy to reply to me declining email.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
On site: Case study on designing requirements to test AI system that does lane keeping
I interviewed at Applied Intuition (Mountain View, CA)
Interview
R1: Recruiter round
R2: With 2 engineers
The communication was a bit unclear if you apply for multiple jobs at this company, there is no way to know which role you are getting a rejection email for and which role you are interviewing as it's never mentioned in the email.
The recruiters don't seem to know the process well.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why do you want to become a technical writer?
Are you willing to work in person 5 days a week?
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Applied Intuition (Mountain View, CA) in Jul 2025
Interview
The entire process was very friendly. A recruiter reached out to me for a 30-minute chat, which went very smoothly. The recruiter was particularly responsible, explained the whole process in detail, and was quick to schedule the next steps.
The second round was with the design lead. He seemed a bit tired, which honestly made me a little nervous. We quickly went through one of my projects, and he would ask questions as we went along.
The wait for feedback after the second round was quite long. I think they were interviewing a lot of people and making careful comparisons after each round. The feedback I eventually received was that my experience was a little weak compared to the other designers. However, they said they would be willing to contact me if another product designer role opens up.
Even though I know this might just be a polite way of letting me down, I was still very satisfied with their entire process.