Toxic & chaotic leadership with management, especially product leadership - Anonymous employee Zoox Employee Review

2.0
25 Jan 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There are a lot of good people throughout the different departments. Food at the main office is good.

Cons

Amazon-ified in recent years has supercharged recent toxic, cut-throat, and disorganized workplace. Frequent re-orgs caused confusion with hierarchy and reporting structure. Product leadership came from Amazon and caused bad vibes all around - especially arrogant & dismissive attitudes. Some managers behave in inappropriate, combative and aggro manners - you wouldn't behave this way in public, so what makes you think you can behave that way in private or in meetings? If you want to be a suck-up, you can get pretty far in Zoox regardless of your output. Stroking egos is the meta. Pay is pretty bad compared to other companies, promotions are slow, recognition of good work is infrequent, and contractors are treated like second-hand citizens. (I wasn't a contractor, but you can learn a lot about a company based on how they treat contractors/temps.)

Explore other reviews about Zoox

5.0
14 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great culture, very supportive environment

Cons

Long timeline for conversion to FTE from contract

1.0
31 Mar 2026
Anonymous contractor
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The tech is cool and there are passionate workers making it happen

Cons

Negligent management, basically asking for burn out which seems to be on par with their parent company's model. Safety? Yeah, sure I guess. Dangling, exposed wires, unsanitary bathroom conditions, and being told "you don't have to be here" when bringing up genuine concerns. We're all adults here yet they seem motivated to treat you like children in a boarding school. I know 10+ individuals with years experience in the AV space who left less than a year into being onboarded. What a waste of resources. I was flown out for training, didn't get my flight ticket until a literal hour before departure after blowing up HR and local leadership (none of which responded or checked in after the fact). Borderline illegal, heck who am I kidding, straight up illegal OSHA violations at the depots. Scheduled less than 6 hours between shifts (hello??? Do we want an incident). Also, being a contractor is a joke. You never know where you stand, managers report you to the contractor before ever telling you anything. Straight nerve racking conditions. If it means anything, I have turned down two recruiters offering twice my current salary (ouch) because it meant I'd have to work for Zoox and their horrible management again.

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