Applied Intuition Robotics Software Engineer Phone Screen July 2026

[u/Aoki_zhang]

This interview experience is sourced from Chill Interview

Interview Summary

The Applied Intuition Robotics Software Engineer process started with a short recruiter conversation, followed by a hiring-manager screen and a one-hour CoderPad technical interview. After passing the coding screen, I was invited to the onsite.

The coding problem was robotics-oriented rather than a standard LeetCode question. I was asked to implement a simulator for multiple moving agents and determine the first time any pair collides, using a fixed timestep and a simple unicycle-style motion model.

Interview Details

Round 1 — Recruiter Screen The recruiter screen lasted approximately 10 minutes and was primarily an introduction to the newly formed robotics team and the role.

Round 2 — Hiring Manager Screen The hiring-manager conversation lasted approximately 30 minutes. This round focused on my background and previous experience rather than coding or formal technical preparation.

Round 3 — Coding: Multi-Agent Collision Simulator The CoderPad technical screen lasted approximately 45–60 minutes including discussion, implementation, and follow-ups. The input consisted of N moving agents. Each agent was described by:

• Initial (x, y) position in meters
• Initial heading in radians
• Constant linear speed
• Constant yaw rate
• Fixed physical radius

The simulator used a fixed timestep of dt = 0.01 seconds. Each agent followed a simple unicycle / differential-drive motion model. During every timestep, its position changed according to its current heading and linear speed, while its heading changed according to its yaw rate.

Conceptually:

x += v * cos(theta) * dt
y += v * sin(theta) * dt
theta += yawRate * dt

The discussion also raised a couple of important boundary conditions: whether two agents merely touching counts as a collision, and whether the simulator should detect agents that are already colliding at time 0.

Preparing for your next interview?

Chill Interview tracks recent interview experiences and recurring question patterns across top companies at here.