I received a call from a recruiter through an employee referral. We had a short conversation, during which I explained my background. The recruiter then sent me the job description for a "Staff Firmware Engineer" position. As I had already completed a coding challenge a couple of weeks prior for another Tesla Firmware role, the recruiter allowed me to skip this step.

Next, the recruiter scheduled a phone interview with the Director of the team. The interview was initially set for 10 AM, but just before it began, the recruiter emailed to reschedule it for 5:30 PM that evening. 5:30 PM passed without a call, and I finally received the call around 6:15 PM. The person was in a rush but we had a quick conversation.

A week later, after following up with the recruiter, I was set up for an informal, hour-long onsite interview with the team. Three different managers from the Tesla Energy team interviewed me together. The discussion focused on general subjects related to my past projects and some design basics.

One of the managers was particularly impressive; I noticed he took time to thoughtfully consider each question before asking and paid close attention to my responses. The second manager was adequate, asking questions as we progressed. The third manager, however, gave me a rather peculiar vibe, and I didn't particularly care for his attitude.

Following the interview, I reached out to the recruiter. By that time, I had already received an offer from one of Tesla's competitors. The recruiter then informed me that the available position was not for a "Staff" role, but rather a general "Firmware Engineer." Given that I already had over five years of Firmware experience and had another offer for a Staff position, I declined Tesla's offer and moved on.

Honestly, I was somewhat surprised that the recruiter initially presented a "Staff" position's job description, only to later state they wished to proceed with a general "Firmware Engineer" role, not even a Senior position. Personally, I did not expect this from a company like Tesla.

General design questions about an autonomous car project from school.