A recruiter reached out to me. I responded, and she scheduled an initial phone screen. From that initial contact to the time I had an offer in hand was 5 weeks. Most of that time was spent waiting for people’s availability (mine and theirs). At each decision point, Cruise acted quickly and decisively. After I talked to the hiring manager on the phone they were in contact the same day to set up an on-site interview in San Francisco. The on-site was on a Friday. The following Monday they let me know they wanted to proceed to the offer stage. I had the written offer that Wednesday. These folks do not screw around. The interview itself was a fairly standard 5 hour affair. I gave a presentation in the morning, followed by a pretty tough and far reaching technical interview that covered software architecture, development practice, and mathematical modeling. Then I had lunch with a couple engineers. After lunch I met with the hiring manager again and we talked about the role and also had some business/strategy discussion. After that was a code review. Then I talked to the recruiter again, and she asked me about compensation. I probably asked for too little. The company pays very well, at least by my standards. On the whole I felt my interviewers were prepared and engaged and I look forward to working with them.

The recruiter initially reached out, and we scheduled a time to chat. Unfortunately, on the scheduled day, the recruiter was unable to attend the call. Upon reaching out, I learned that the recruiter had been laid off, so it was understandable they didn't make it. After rescheduling with a different recruiter, our conversation about the company's situation and the role itself felt rather awkward. There were significant changes, including a lowered salary, a different location, and altered responsibilities compared to what was initially advertised. It became evident that the company was experiencing some turbulence. I expressed to the recruiter that while I might be overqualified for the current role, I would still be open to considering other opportunities in the future. Given the turnover in leadership within the company, I now view this experience as a fortunate turn of events.