Has increasingly becoming a marketing company, very weak on the tech side, don't recommend - Senior Engineer Motional Employee Review

1.0
Apr 27, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The company does provide good benefits, the 401K match program is very generous.

Cons

Too many, I'll list several important ones, 1. Several other reviews about technology is true. The technology leadership in general has failed to advance better technology and this company is falling far behind other competitors. The higher tech leadership is too obsessive with demos and marketing and forgets that the foundation of a tech company is its core technology. Recent hires doesn't reflect a coherent strategy, hiring ousted executives from competitors is not the solution. 2. The other reviews about promotion is also true. There's zero transparency, worse yet, the leadership claims they want to reform promotion based on merit, yet, at the end of the day, it's all about politics, whoever is closer to the leaders will be promoted. The hypocrisy is worth than no transparency. 3. The company seems to be obsessive with a certain group of diversity. I'm all for diversity, but when you put statement like "hire X number of a particular group" by the end of the year in your OKR yet sweep the only VP of Asian descent out of the leadership role, it's utterly hypocrisy to claim you're for diversity. 4. No coherent vision and strategy. This can be clearly seen that whenever a new executives from competitors is hired, there will be a new whatever movement. When all dust settles, you'll find out that everything is the same old.

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Motional Response
5y
Thank you for your review. Our top priority is the quality and safety of our core technology stack, and that’s why our engineering team is by far Motional’s largest -- approximately one-hundred times larger than our marketing team. Our strategic, consistent approach to R&D has enabled us to accomplish a great deal; we became one of the world’s first companies to operate driverless vehicles, while keeping to aggressive development timelines on our next-generation platform. I understand how devoting significant time and energy to mature our stack to achieve readiness for driverless can feel like a step backwards in terms of technology development. But it is essential to developing the full spectrum of capabilities needed for safe driverless technology, including safety expertise to perform thorough hazard analysis, risk assessment, and validation expertise and processes. In parallel, we continue to invest in significant technical advancements needed to achieve scalable driverless AVs, as evidenced by some of the techniques we’ve developed that have been widely referenced and adopted by others across the AV industry (e.g., PointPillars and PointPainting). Rest assured, as CTO I spend most of my time on driving and evaluating key technical strategic initiatives. Regarding diversity, this has been a priority since Motional’s inception just over a year ago. We launched our DEI program and set organization-wide diversity goals, and these will remain a strategic priority for the long term. I’m sorry you aren’t having the positive experience we want for all of our employees. I’m also happy that, based on recent feedback surveys, employee satisfaction on the engineering team remains above average as we continue to grow our team. I’d be happy to discuss your concerns with you directly. Please feel free to reach out if you would like to talk. Laura Major Chief Technology Officer

Explore other reviews about Motional

5.0
May 25, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

State of the art technology

Cons

Changes in leadership and org structure

4.0
Jul 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

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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