Zoox

Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience - Santa Clara, California

January 1, 2024

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

This guy sat and was just silent. He didn’t interact at all and answered questions with a couple of minutes’ delay. It was a terrible, most terrible experience from about 30 interviews.

Questions

Typical JS entry-level questions

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Zoox Senior Software Engineer role in Santa Clara, California.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

Zoox's interview process for their Senior Software Engineer roles in Santa Clara, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive0%

Neutral0%

Negative100%

Candidates reported having very negative feelings for Zoox's Senior Software Engineer interview process in Santa Clara, California.

Zoox Work Experiences

Good tech, good people, good food. Good at burning cash while falling behind Waymo

Senior Software Engineer • Former Employee

Foster City, California, United States

Pros: Good culture, good tech stack, and good opportunity with the right manager. It's a rare fusion of ML, software, firmware, vehicle hardware engineering, and operations. A young, hard-working engineer can learn a lot and go far. The food is great.

Cons: Risk-averse and self-defeating upper management since Tim Kentley-Klay's forced departure. Too much focus on moving goalposts instead of finding revenue with today's tech. Simultaneously self-congratulatory and self-defeating purgatory of cyclical milestones and demos. Base pay is good, but the equity can suck.

Good tech, good people, good food. Good at burning cash while falling behind Waymo

Senior Software Engineer • Former Employee

Foster City, California, United States

Pros: Good culture, good tech stack, and good opportunity with the right manager. It's a rare fusion of ML, software, firmware, vehicle hardware engineering, and operations. A young, hard-working engineer can learn a lot and go far. The food is great.

Cons: Risk-averse and self-defeating upper management since Tim Kentley-Klay's forced departure. Too much focus on moving goalposts instead of finding revenue with today's tech. Simultaneously self-congratulatory and self-defeating purgatory of cyclical milestones and demos. Base pay is good, but the equity can suck.

Great place to work, but clueless management

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Cool technology, great coworkers, non-bureaucratic work environment.

Cons: Inexperienced leadership with no track record of success. Especially poor marketing/branding. Exploitative stock option structure, which ensures majority employees will never make market salary.

Great place to work, but clueless management

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Cool technology, great coworkers, non-bureaucratic work environment.

Cons: Inexperienced leadership with no track record of success. Especially poor marketing/branding. Exploitative stock option structure, which ensures majority employees will never make market salary.

Good tech, lots of politics

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

Foster City, California, United States

Pros: The engineers that joined here earlier are a very talented bunch. I'm honored to work with them. The problem we are trying to solve is massive, and we've come a long way to getting it done. Yes, there are hurdles left, and if engineers are allowed to lead, it could come to fruition.

Cons: Over 2019-2020, a lot of new folks joined who have made it a political minefield. They are less concerned with the mission and more about grabbing titles and portraying their minimal work with a lot of polish. I fear for us old-timers.

Good tech, lots of politics

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

Foster City, California, United States

Pros: The engineers that joined here earlier are a very talented bunch. I'm honored to work with them. The problem we are trying to solve is massive, and we've come a long way to getting it done. Yes, there are hurdles left, and if engineers are allowed to lead, it could come to fruition.

Cons: Over 2019-2020, a lot of new folks joined who have made it a political minefield. They are less concerned with the mission and more about grabbing titles and portraying their minimal work with a lot of polish. I fear for us old-timers.

Good tech, good people, good food. Good at burning cash while falling behind Waymo

Senior Software Engineer • Former Employee

Foster City, California, United States

Pros: Good culture, good tech stack, and good opportunity with the right manager. It's a rare fusion of ML, software, firmware, vehicle hardware engineering, and operations. A young, hard-working engineer can learn a lot and go far. The food is great.

Cons: Risk-averse and self-defeating upper management since Tim Kentley-Klay's forced departure. Too much focus on moving goalposts instead of finding revenue with today's tech. Simultaneously self-congratulatory and self-defeating purgatory of cyclical milestones and demos. Base pay is good, but the equity can suck.

4.0
Good tech, good people, good food. Good at burning cash while falling behind Waymo
Senior Software Engineer • Former Employee
Foster City, California, United States
May 10, 2025
Pros: Good culture, good tech stack, and good opportunity with the right manager. It's a rare fusion of ML, software, firmware, vehicle hardware engineering, and operations. A young, hard-working engineer can learn a lot and go far. The food is great.
Cons: Risk-averse and self-defeating upper management since Tim Kentley-Klay's forced departure. Too much focus on moving goalposts instead of finding revenue with today's tech. Simultaneously self-congratulatory and self-defeating purgatory of cyclical milestones and demos. Base pay is good, but the equity can suck.

Great place to work, but clueless management

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Cool technology, great coworkers, non-bureaucratic work environment.

Cons: Inexperienced leadership with no track record of success. Especially poor marketing/branding. Exploitative stock option structure, which ensures majority employees will never make market salary.

4.0
Great place to work, but clueless management
Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee
July 23, 2022
Pros: Cool technology, great coworkers, non-bureaucratic work environment.
Cons: Inexperienced leadership with no track record of success. Especially poor marketing/branding. Exploitative stock option structure, which ensures majority employees will never make market salary.

Good tech, lots of politics

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

Foster City, California, United States

Pros: The engineers that joined here earlier are a very talented bunch. I'm honored to work with them. The problem we are trying to solve is massive, and we've come a long way to getting it done. Yes, there are hurdles left, and if engineers are allowed to lead, it could come to fruition.

Cons: Over 2019-2020, a lot of new folks joined who have made it a political minefield. They are less concerned with the mission and more about grabbing titles and portraying their minimal work with a lot of polish. I fear for us old-timers.

3.0
Good tech, lots of politics
Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee
Foster City, California, United States
May 15, 2020
Pros: The engineers that joined here earlier are a very talented bunch. I'm honored to work with them. The problem we are trying to solve is massive, and we've come a long way to getting it done. Yes, there are hurdles left, and if engineers are allowed to lead, it could come to fruition.
Cons: Over 2019-2020, a lot of new folks joined who have made it a political minefield. They are less concerned with the mission and more about grabbing titles and portraying their minimal work with a lot of polish. I fear for us old-timers.

Zoox Interview Questions

Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock

You're given daily stock prices. Find the maximum profit you can make by buying and selling the stock once. You must buy before you sell.

ArraysDynamic Programming

Basic Calculator II

Implement a basic calculator to evaluate a simple expression string. The expression can contain non-negative integers, '+', '-', '*', '/' operators, and spaces; integer division should truncate toward zero.

Minimum Number of Frogs Croaking

You are given a string representing the order in which frogs are croaking. Determine the minimum number of frogs required to produce the entire croaking sequence, assuming they must croak in the order 'c', 'r', 'o', 'a', 'k'.

ArraysStringsStacks

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