I was put in touch with the Cruise team via an external recruiter. The Cruise recruiter was amazing. He was very transparent, instead of playing games like some other bigger companies do. The process was well managed and coordinated really well. There was a take home problem that was a lot of fun to be written in C++. After that there was a phone interview with a typical programming puzzle on coderpad. They invited me onsite after that. The process was very similar to my experiences at big companies. 4 rounds with 3 of them focusing on problem solving and C++ and another on past experience. I enjoyed meeting with my interviewers and getting a tour of the self driving car hardware. They had great catered lunch too and my lunch companion gave me more details about life at cruise. They were very prompt and told me I would get an offer the next day. They were also very quick in actually coming up with a very good offer. Unlike other companies, they did not ask for previous salaries, competing offers etc before giving me an offer. They gave me the best offer that they could. Reasons to not accept: I was thoroughly impressed by their project, the team and the founders. The founders are serial entrepreneurs with an amazing track record and they have managed to assemble an amazing team. I got offers from 6 other companies including Google and Facebook (rejected both), but they were my top choice. Ultimately the reason I didn't take the offer was because I had an offer that was even better financially. I would have probably taken this offer had it not been for my poor financials in the last 6 years (failed start ups). I really needed the best offer I could get and do regret the situations that led to me not accepting this offer. I really believe I would have loved working here. People who are considering Google, Facebook etc - my advice to you would be to make some time and definitely talk to the folks here. They've got something special going on. I hope I'll able to work with this team in the future some time.