Unethical HR doesn't value employees - Software Engineer Motional Employee Review

2.0
Aug 26, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Self driving cars are kind of neat

Cons

Didn't pay me what I was offered. HR does not value or respect employees and is not to be trusted. No coherent engineering organization to speak of. Engineers are scattered among disparate science teams with no coordination or leadership. Very little test coverage on a constantly breaking product. Tremendous bus factor.

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Motional Response
5y
First, I would like to apologize for my delayed response. I want to thank you for taking the time to share your personal experience and feedback. I am very sorry that your time at Motional didn’t meet your expectations As our company rapidly grows, we remain committed to be a trusted partner, a first-rate technology developer, and a great employer. All employee voices are valued and respected, and our HR and leadership team regularly solicit and encourage candid feedback from our colleagues. Because of how quickly we are growing, we have been solving for organizational structure in real time. On the engineering team, we have structured around geography (US and Asia) and functional areas, but as we grow we continue to look for ways to help our team scale effectively. We are also actively working on enhancing collaboration across our teams’ geographical footprints by providing new tools and resources to help facilitate best practice and knowledge sharing. On test coverage, I respectfully disagree. At Motional, we have various levels of test coverage ranging from software unit test, to simulation, to full-scale vehicle validation. At each phase, we do a thorough review of the tests results and implement designs and solutions to resolve issues. Safety and careful product testing underpin everything we do. It is, and will remain, a bedrock driver and key aspect of our mission. If you would like to share more about your experiences, please contact me so we can set up time to talk. Thank you again for your feedback and best of luck in your future endeavors. Sincerely, Laura Major Chief Technology Officer

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5.0
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Pros

State of the art technology

Cons

Changes in leadership and org structure

4.0
Jul 4, 2026
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Pros

Excellent place to learn and grow a career. In software, especially cloud and data products, very kind and collaborative culture of people who work hard to learn and grow. Very good benefits package. Lots of room to have autonomy and to be a builder and a maintainer. Leadership team requires that promotion cases demonstrate real business impact, which makes it a good environment to learn how to be impactful.

Cons

Significant portion of company located in Singapore can be awkward for a few select roles. The company is past the funnest startup phases and needs to be aligned with frugal, fiscally conservative safety-first culture of South Korean Hyundai (parent company). Equity package looks inflated on paper by about 3-4x (the stock options are little more than a tax complication). Lots of red tape. Company moves slow. Cross-functional nature of domain-scoped teams requires program management and a bit of bureaucracy to get many things done. Leadership leverages the glass ceiling effect very effectively, which can have the unfortunate effect of orienting engineers to business problems instead of engineering.

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