Pros: Working here means you’re right in the middle of the autonomous vehicle revolution. The projects are next-level, and you get to play with some seriously cool tech that’s shaping the future. The people at Applied are sharp, motivated, and down-to-earth. There’s a strong vibe of teamwork and sharing knowledge, which makes it a great place to learn and grow. The leadership is approachable. They’re really focused on making sure the team is happy and the company is headed in the right direction. If you’re hungry to learn and take on new challenges, this is the place. Plenty of opportunities to level up your skills or take on more responsibility.

Cons: Every now and then, you come across an engineer who’s never had a “real” job (e.g. only FAANGs and entitled tech companies) and complains about trivial things, like the amount of free food, despite the company making a solid effort to accommodate everyone. It’s rare, but when it happens, it’s frustrating. These people would probably be happier elsewhere, taking control of their own happiness instead of wasting everyone else’s time with their entitled attitudes.

Pros: Applied has strong customer pull, and there's a lot of potential in the market. Leadership knows how to make money, unlike most AV companies. We work on interesting tech with an extremely talented and driven team. The company is also very transparent internally.

Cons: Easily the worst company culture I've ever seen. Our primary value is "speed above all else," which has turned the codebase into a bug-ridden mess because everyone is always rushing. We have a strong team, but code quality is very poor due to the working conditions and constant demands. Teams within the company use our tools and will often skip releases because they're filled with bugs. The work-life balance is horrendous, but they act like this is a positive thing because you get to "grow." Well, I've worked at other companies that provided just as much growth without the high stress and insane hours. Many people on my team work well over 50 hours per week, sometimes 80+ during crunch times (which have become increasingly more frequent). I dread every on-call shift. On top of all that, the pay isn't even good. It's well below market. They also have a policy that you can't write your job title on your LinkedIn profile, which is clearly designed to trap you and prevent employee poaching. Take a look on LinkedIn; you'll see that everyone just has the title "Engineering." The weirdest part is that people are forced to act like they're okay with the insane rules and terrible WLB because dissenting opinions aren't allowed. Everyone seems afraid and intimidated constantly. Management is toxic; they claim to care about fixing these problems, but there has been no company messaging about avoiding burnout. There's no plan to ever let people work less than 50 hours. If they cared about people, the number 1 company value would not be speed above ALL ELSE. Applied claims to have low turnover, but it's an absolute lie. I've seen many, many people leave after less than a year. They claim these people are "self-selecting" out of the company because they can't keep up, but really it's because most people aren't willing to deal with this absurd culture for terrible pay and a pitiful 3 weeks of PTO. Take a look at the average employee age on LinkedIn; it's under 25. We are seriously lacking in experienced talent because senior folks have much better options. At the end of the day, I would only recommend Applied to new grads who are desperate to get experience in the robotics field. That's the only advantage of working here; you will learn and get good experience, even if you're miserable. For anyone else, especially people with families or actual lives outside of work, stay very far away.

Pros: Applied goes off a lot by its elitism, having managed to get employees with good credentials and backgrounds. This elitism helps in customer sales and demos, and the business is doing okay.

Cons: Applied runs more as a sales company than a product or engineering company, and it shows in the constant rushing of engineering before other employees have to cover up the tech debt. Stock growth and business is good, but not anything better compared to other high-growth startups or even big tech companies after dilution. There are quite a few managers who lack emotional intelligence and empathy and just shouldn't be managers, but remain because they've been at the company for far too long and got themselves into a position where they cannot be easily replaced. If you are an immigrant on a visa or have to go through the green card process, avoid this company. They use the process as leverage against you. PERM is only initiated one year after you join (unless you clearly negotiate this) and is up to the whims of your manager to decide whether to initiate this. You have to pay for your own premium processing as well. It is a constant air of uncertainty and fear that the company can leverage against you at any time, in a company with little psychological safety. Management and leadership routinely dismisses feedback and concerns from employees, and turnover as not a good culture fit and simply does not have the empathy to understand. After the Series E, it's simply not worth it to join with how expensive the stock is to exercise. If you can already pass the interview process here, you can get far better options elsewhere.