Pros: Applied has extremely talented and friendly engineers who are all highly driven by what they work on. It's great to be in person and get to learn and collaborate with such motivated and smart people. I've learned so much about the automotive industry and engineering practices.

Cons: Applied requires you to have or develop really good time management and prioritization skills. Since the business and the tech move so quickly, you can feel overwhelmed by the amount of work that you're trying to take on. You learn quickly that this doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be doing everything all the time, but rather that you have to be able to make quick prioritization decisions off the cuff and manage your own time.

Pros: Growing business, smart engineers, and free food.

Cons: You will be evaluated every month—yes, every month! If you do not meet their expectations, you will be fired. This underscores the high performance standards and continuous assessment process in place, where there's a strong emphasis on consistently meeting objectives to retain your position. You will be asked to provide feedback frequently. However, if your feedback is particularly negative towards someone, especially your manager, you need to be cautious. When you start your job, you'll be assigned a "hero project." The purpose of this isn't just to get you started with your work but, more importantly, to test you. These projects often have vague definitions, but the expectation is clear: you need to prove yourself. The project duration spans several months, but you'll be required to provide weekly updates and outputs. If you fail to meet their expectations, you may be fired immediately. It's not uncommon for someone who was just welcomed to the team to silently disappear later on. But if you’ve worked at other well-known companies, you probably know you’re worth more than this.

Pros: - Amazing team that is really smart, from really great backgrounds (lots of Google/Waymo, as well as other top tech companies like Apple/Airbnb/etc.). - Leadership is great, with strong transparency and a feedback loop. - Fast-paced environment with lots of ownership - great for those who feel like Google/big tech is too slow-paced or not impactful enough.

Cons: A fast-paced environment can mean that on some days, WLB might not be the best. However, management is aware of that. For example, we got all of Thanksgiving week off, even though the whole week wasn't scheduled as a holiday.