Extremely toxic workplace, unethical hiring and business practices - Engineering Applied Intuition Employee Review

1.0
19 Apr 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very efficient at sales process Good at networking with customers (to such extent where they are very pushy even to c-level executives at major automotive and trucking OEMs)

Cons

There is complete lack of psychological safety at this company. The leadership likes to keep everyone on their toes all the time by making life unnecessarily miserable. Majority of the folks that I interact with aren't happy to be working here. My hypothesis on why folks continue to work here are: there is absolutely no time or energy to look for new opportunities; further exacerbated by a brutal job market; and some waiting on the company to do a successful IPO in the next couple of years. I highly recommend folks on H-1B, OPT and CPT to stay the hell away from this company, as you can be let go at any time without any valid reasons. All the hard work and effort that you have put to build a good life in a foreign country will be at risk if you join. I saw even folks who been with the company for more than 3-4 years being let go as they were no longer considered valuable. I saw folks who were let go, a few weeks before filing for their H-1B application. I saw folks that were let go and put on PIP after informing their managers about upcoming birth of their child and parental leave. It is only a matter of time for this company to be hit with lawsuits for unlawfully terminating employees. In my several years of working in corporate America at various companies and industries, I haven't seen such a company that completely lacks empathy and regard for employees physical and mental health. Speed above all else is the first leadership principle. But at the cost of speed; quality, compliance, safety-criticality and performance of software are all sacrificed and put on back burners. The leadership consistently exhibits and encourages borderline unethical behaviors such as: lying about the maturity level of products in front of customers; falsely showcasing themselves as thought leaders and industry trend setters in front of c-level, board members and executive customers; using resources that are on-paper committed for one customer to work on projects for several competing customers; to even childish behaviors such as aggressively urging employees to like and promote posts on LinkedIn; forcing existing employees to refer connections for hiring and the list goes on and on and on.... The management is good a creating a mirage and a cult like setup especially for the new college graduates, that joining Applied Intuition is the best thing that could have happened to them. The company has experience in building simulation products that run at scale on the cloud. But the company doesn’t have experience building safety critical, compliant and high-quality products that can run on thousands of vehicles and responsible for the lives of drivers and passengers. While they are hiring talent from the industry, they are not willing to listen to inputs provided by these experts and instead continue to run their business in the same way that caters to mainly non-safety critical simulation products that run on the cloud and demo/vapor-ware solutions. They instead use these experts as trophies especially the ones from Tesla and parade them around in front of potential customers. All the recent negative reviews are on point. It is very evident from either 5-star or 1-star reviews, that majority of the critical feedback expressed in the reviews are unfortunately true. Due to the recent spate of negative reviews, it is even possible for the leadership to strongly urge existing employees to add positive reviews to balance and to falsely improve the ratings on Glassdoor. It is sad to see such an amazing opportunity in front of this company, all thrown to waste with petty behaviors and focusing on all the wrong things.

Explore other reviews about Applied Intuition

5.0
7 Mar 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Talent density is real. You’re surrounded by sharp, driven people who like solving hard problems and moving fast. The culture genuinely embraces “done is better than perfect,” which means ideas don’t sit in slide decks they turn into action quickly. If you enjoy operating at break necking speed with smart teammates and meaningful problems in AI, autonomy, and defense, it can be an incredibly energizing place to work. Ownership is expected, initiative is rewarded, and the bar is high in a way that pushes people to level up quickly. Keep up or bow out, there's no shame in it.

Cons

The pace is not for everyone. Things move fast, priorities shift, and the expectation is that you keep up. It’s an environment where people who like intensity and autonomy thrive, but those looking for slower cycles or highly structured processes may find it demanding. As the company grows quickly, some processes are still catching up to the scale. If you get offended easily, don't bother.

1
3.0
6 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Excellent business development strategy. Constant new customers and projects for engineers. If you wanted to run your own startup one day, you could do a lot worse than learn from Applied's strategies. - Fast-pace, challenging work for engineers. Very little abstraction means you touch most parts of the projects you work on. Good learning experiences. - Talented group of engineers to work with (see con about lack of seniority). - No-nonsense culture (at least at the start, see cons).

Cons

- Company has never learned to plan in my years here. Constantly making the mistake of compensating for lack of planning with crunching engineers. Attrition numbers tell the story. - Chasing best available business opportunities has led to its current success. It also means lack of focus and concerningly immature products given their age. - Shockingly does not grow comp with elevation to leadership positions. Lowballs new hires, then expects the existing equity to be enough reason to take on drastically more responsibility and give up technical work. - Great no-bullshit culture (drop BS meetings; technical need leads the way, not politics; avoid partisan politics at work, etc.) is degrading from the top. - New-grad heavy teams. Dearth of senior people to learn from is concerning. Good reason for new grads to move on quickly, or risk building bad habits. - Constantly uses valuation success in funding rounds to justify stunting comp growth. After 1-2 years you understand a truth: the company might be succeeding, but what does that have to do with you? - At some point, you learn enough from the firefighting. But the firefighting does not stop.

9
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