Tesla

Mechanical Design Engineer Interview Experience - Palo Alto, California

June 27, 2026

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Horrible experience. It was more of a 1-hour humiliation call than an interview. The man was asking questions nonstop and would until he found an area I didn't have a lot of experience (not required or mentioned in the position) and he started asking more about that, even laughed at me.

Questions

Gdt Casting Plastic injection Questions about elon

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 34 interview experiences for the Tesla Mechanical Design Engineer role in Palo Alto, California.

Success Rate

15%

Pass Rate

Tesla's interview process for their Mechanical Design Engineer roles in Palo Alto, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive50%

Neutral29%

Negative21%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Tesla's Mechanical Design Engineer interview process in Palo Alto, California.

Tesla Work Experiences

Highly rewarding work

Mechanical Design Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: You feel like what you do really matters for the product and company.

Cons: Long work hours, instability of the company.

Highly rewarding work

Mechanical Design Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: You feel like what you do really matters for the product and company.

Cons: Long work hours, instability of the company.

My thoughts on the mechanical design internship at Tesla

Mechanical Design Engineer • Former Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Amazing team of engineers who are super supportive. Lots of opportunities to build design skills. Exposure to industry standards. A fast-paced environment helps you get better really quickly, and a lot of ownership over products.

Cons: Work culture has you working longer hours, but it is, believe it or not, team-dependent. My team, for example, valued work-life balance a lot, and most people left right around 5/5:30.

My thoughts on the mechanical design internship at Tesla

Mechanical Design Engineer • Former Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Amazing team of engineers who are super supportive. Lots of opportunities to build design skills. Exposure to industry standards. A fast-paced environment helps you get better really quickly, and a lot of ownership over products.

Cons: Work culture has you working longer hours, but it is, believe it or not, team-dependent. My team, for example, valued work-life balance a lot, and most people left right around 5/5:30.

Challenging Tech, Poor Job Security

Mechanical Design Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Challenging, autonomy, responsibility, dynamic, technology's edge

Cons: Unpaid overtime, job security, and benefits.

Challenging Tech, Poor Job Security

Mechanical Design Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Challenging, autonomy, responsibility, dynamic, technology's edge

Cons: Unpaid overtime, job security, and benefits.

Highly rewarding work

Mechanical Design Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: You feel like what you do really matters for the product and company.

Cons: Long work hours, instability of the company.

4.0
Highly rewarding work
Mechanical Design Engineer • Current Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
June 12, 2025
Pros: You feel like what you do really matters for the product and company.
Cons: Long work hours, instability of the company.

My thoughts on the mechanical design internship at Tesla

Mechanical Design Engineer • Former Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Amazing team of engineers who are super supportive. Lots of opportunities to build design skills. Exposure to industry standards. A fast-paced environment helps you get better really quickly, and a lot of ownership over products.

Cons: Work culture has you working longer hours, but it is, believe it or not, team-dependent. My team, for example, valued work-life balance a lot, and most people left right around 5/5:30.

5.0
My thoughts on the mechanical design internship at Tesla
Mechanical Design Engineer • Former Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
March 12, 2024
Pros: Amazing team of engineers who are super supportive. Lots of opportunities to build design skills. Exposure to industry standards. A fast-paced environment helps you get better really quickly, and a lot of ownership over products.
Cons: Work culture has you working longer hours, but it is, believe it or not, team-dependent. My team, for example, valued work-life balance a lot, and most people left right around 5/5:30.

Challenging Tech, Poor Job Security

Mechanical Design Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Challenging, autonomy, responsibility, dynamic, technology's edge

Cons: Unpaid overtime, job security, and benefits.

3.0
Challenging Tech, Poor Job Security
Mechanical Design Engineer • Current Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
April 12, 2019
Pros: Challenging, autonomy, responsibility, dynamic, technology's edge
Cons: Unpaid overtime, job security, and benefits.

Tesla Interview Questions

Course Schedule

Determine if it is possible to finish all courses given prerequisite relationships between them. Essentially, detect if a cycle exists in the course dependencies.

GraphsRecursion

Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters

Find the length of the longest substring within a given string that contains no repeating characters. The substring must be contiguous.

StringsTwo PointersSliding Windows

Minimum Changes To Make Alternating Binary String

Determine the fewest modifications needed to transform a binary string into an alternating pattern (e.g., "0101" or "1010"). You can change '0' to '1' or '1' to '0'.

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