Engineering Technician II • Current Employee
Pros: In my experience, the people at the company are mostly great to work with. My supervisor and the co-workers in my team are awesome.
The occasional frustrations are mostly due to multiple engineering groups sharing the same laboratory space.
In my experience, I also feel appreciated and respected by the engineers, and got a promotion after working here for a year.
I also enjoy the fairly flexible work schedule, though this depends on the engineering group.
There are some teams where techs have to work very standard shifts, including in early mornings, evenings, and/or ten-hour shifts.
However, for my position, I am generally able to work whatever hours I want, as long as I put in my 40+ a week, get my tasks done, and am there for meetings and trainings.
Cons: Tesla does expect a lot out of you. Everyone (both engineers and technicians) tends to work long hours, with tasks frequently going into the evening. Fortunately, technicians are paid hourly and receive overtime pay. The pressure to get tasks done and the limitations of the lab space do make evening work more regular than would be preferred. There are definitely some inefficiencies with getting work done at the lab due to multiple teams utilizing shared laboratory resources, which can be frustrating. Also, you may be required to do some mundane tasks like shipping samples or purchasing supplies.