Axon reviews

3.6

61% would recommend to a friend

(760 total reviews)
avatar

Rick Smith

76% approve of CEO

64% positive business outlook

Axon has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 760 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Axon employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

760 reviews
3.0
Mar 19, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Axon has nice perks, work-life-balance, unlimited (discretionary) PTO, decent benefits, free snacks and nice offices, just like Amazon, Google and all the other Silicon Valley companies. Axon pay is pretty decent, but you have to negotiate for it.

Cons

Axon has been in business since 1993 and while they have a 25+ year history, they operate just as a start-up would, often disjointed, tunnel-visioned and not open to hearing ideas from employees with previous history in the very products being created. Axon is very top-heavy with more Directors, Senior Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents, Senior Managers, and Managers than any company I have ever seen. It seems like there are 4 managers to every employee and layers to cut through to get a decision made. It is not uncommon for management to come up with a new idea and suddenly want to reorganize the company. While the company touts " we want to retain talent" and "we treat our employees well", management is quite quick to show an employee the door should something go awry, especially when an employee has done what they were told to do. Management is very quick to point fingers and blame employees for their misguidedness and People Operations, as Human Resources is called, doesn't stand behind the people, but rather the management. As other reviews have stated, it is not uncommon to see emails and messages on a weekly, if not daily basis, that "so-and-so is no longer with Axon." From the top down, while I really liked the CEO and President, they do have their favorites and Axon does work like the old boy's club. Certain people are untouchable no matter how much damage they do to a team or group. They are just simply moved to another management role. Several of these people have been moved 4-5-6 times, yet someone who is not part of the boys club is shown the door.

2.0
Aug 6, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Our products can truly save lives, and protect the truth of the officer or the public, whomever is in the right. Most departments have a few good employees that truly care about the company and its customers' safety. This is one of the only reasons we have forward momentum, besides veteran employee hard work prior. A few good benefits are relaxed dress code, free coffee, a few free lunches, bonuses can be good. Some officers are very happy with our products and that helps maintain our loyalty and extremely hard work. I can see a path forward for myself, still, and that is what motivates me.

Cons

Unfortunately, there are entire agencies who are frustrated with or hate our products, and some have paid the price for low cost parts, unrealistic schedules and arbitrary, hard deadlines that limit what the product quality could be. Everyone on these teams know the same story, there is insufficient time to do things right, and every few years we hear that we are not going to do repeat those mistakes, but it happens on the very next project when dates cannot be met, or quality is subpar, despite the teams giving it their all. Dates are set long before we know what is feasible, and no adjustments are considered acceptable, despite the warnings of the team experts. Eventually, this leads to certain failure (which was predicted by subject matter experts), and it is always sketchy if the people trying to save the project will be thrown under the bus at any moment. Some departments have cancerous management or employees, and have been legitimately reported for their destructive decision making when it defies logic and product quality, and costs the company alot of money, and project schedule but they are still there. Our products involve personal and career risk to our customers, we should not take this lightly or ignore brutal facts. Key employees are leaving the company despite wanting to stay but they can't justify it under this toxic work environment of a single individual VP. The tribal knowledge that has left over the past few months and years is irreplaceable, and nearly all of it was avoidable. Warnings were given, and ignored. These departments are now struggling, but refuse to admit it, and worse, mid and upper management are not held accountable because they hide the fact that the employee could have been compensated fairly, but refused to do so.

2.0
Sep 11, 2016

Don't Be Fooled

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Fancy entrance - Shiny new office - Great computer equipment - Body cams are big biz - Taser weapons are a monopoly

Cons

Product quality is terrible. The Body2s have had tons of issues. The car cams are barely usable in real world situations. The migration to Azure is a considered either a joke or a nightmare by most of engineering. Not surprisingly, they've carried their attitude straight from the weapons world; search for "Killing Them Softly" if you want to see how bad things are. Ever wonder why most of super positive 5 star reviews come in clusters? That's because they're written by HR. What do you expect from a company that thinks it's classy to ride a crappy boat in a pirate patch in order to "recruit" from google? The benefits are mostly terrible unless you're 21 and don't need proper healthcare and can survive solely on grand canyon trips. Good luck with the mostly flat stock price, you're not getting any stock grants anyway, because that's how Taser rolls. One of the other reviewers mentioned that there's a lot of ex-microsoft, google and amazon folks here. This is true; too bad it's all the rejects who couldn't hack it at a real company.

Viewing 4 - 6 of 760 Reviews

Glassdoor has 863 Axon reviews submitted anonymously by Axon employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Axon is right for you.