0

How is Applied Intuition viewed in the tech world?

Profile picture
Software Engineering Intern at Taro Community8 days ago

Does anyone know if Applied Intuition is a good place to start a career for a new grad? When I look at what I want in my career, I want:

  1. Career growth
  2. Brand
  3. Compensation

Career growth at this company is quite good. The blogs, and the people who I’ve talked to throughout the interviews consistently echo that there’s a lot of learning and growth that happens.

The reported TC is around 190K. The equity is paid in options and the package between 30-40% equity. Compwise, it’s around big tech levels - higher than apple, competitive with Meta, and slightly lower than Google, Amazon and Netflix. Compared to pre-big tech startups, it’s on the mid to  lower end - 5-10% higher than Asana and Slack, but also 5-10% lower than Stripe and Databricks. Maybe someone can comment if my analysis is reasonable?

The only thing I haven’t touched on is brand. Compared to other offers in the valley, like big tech and pre-IPOs like Databricks and Notion, how does Applied Intuition stand? Can someone evaluate it from a brand perspective? The main brands I have are T5 CS masters, T5 CS undergrad. Would it be worthwhile for someone like me to join Applied Intuition?

65
4

Discussion

(4 comments)
  • 1
    Profile picture
    Thoughtful Tarodactyl
    Taro Community
    7 days ago

    Personally, I would view Applied Intuition quite highly - the interviews are extremely difficult, it’s solving complicated technical problems, and the quality of engineers / people at the company is amazing.

    It also offers a great network, so I wouldn’t worry too much about brand appearances working there, especially if you have done internships at well known FAANG-tier companies. T5 CS school helps as well.

    Compensation - probably depends quite a bit on the valuation they’re giving you equity at. They raised a round recently and I question the growth upside for new hires at the 6 billion valuation. Also keep in mind to subtract the costs of buying the options. Given the recent round, I’d be surprised if compensation is still as appealing at the company.

    It’s a great place to work for learning and growth. Keep in mind that WLB is quite poor though. They expect a minimum of 50 hours (I hear that this can go up to 60-70 for some teams) a week with one weekend a month of working and have less generous PTO policies from most of FAANG.

  • 0
    Profile picture
    Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
    7 days ago

    I have heard of Applied Intuition, but I personally would put it below Databricks and Notion. It's a name I know but don't feel like it's constantly in the zeitgeist like Databricks/Notion (and certainly not at the level of OpenAI or Anthropic). I feel like self-driving cars have been mostly a failure (tons of layoffs and botched betas), but Waymo has admittedly gained a ton of traction recently. If it wasn't for Waymo's recent smash success, I would actually have leaned away from it (unless it was your only offer of course).

    Overall, it seems like a solid company, and I'm sure there's talent there. Probably a solid place to start your career. Check out this thread as well: "How do you assess company’s market position (especially startups)?"

    • 0
      Profile picture
      Software Engineering Intern
      Taro Community
      7 days ago

      I personally would put it below Databricks and Notion

      I agree with your assessment, but what I’m trying to understand is how much worse is Applied compared to DB and Notion. I know that with these things like brand, it’s super hard to assign some numerical value. So I was wondering if you were to make made a tier list based on company prestige, where would you rank DB/Notion, where would you rank Applied Intuition (and name companies you think is similar to Applied ). If the gap is super huge, what companies would you put in between them (to get a sense of scale)?

    • 0
      Profile picture
      Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
      7 days ago

      I agree with your assessment, but what I’m trying to understand is how much worse is Applied compared to DB and Notion.

      It's to the point where it's a no-brainer to take Databricks/Notion over it. As you mentioned, it's hard to quantify.

      If the gap is super huge, what companies would you put in between them (to get a sense of scale)?

      The gap is substantial, but I don't want to put companies in between them or create any remotely concrete tier list in general as it oversimplifies the topic and will offend people at those companies (people don't want to be shown lower on a tier list 😜).

      Just know that Applied Intuition is a solid company. Yes, you could do better, but you could easily, easily do worse. In this market, junior folks tend to not have much of a choice anyways - Interview and see what you get. I imagine Applied Intuition's rejection rate is insanely high right now. No need to worry about this hypothetical too much.