Tesla

Senior Firmware Engineer Interview Experience - Palo Alto, California

April 1, 2016

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

2 phone interviews followed by an on-site interview.

The online portion consisted of a technical presentation followed by 5 one-on-one interviews.

I enjoyed the presentation as it gives you an opportunity to showcase your best work. The interview panel is interested in a lot of technical detail (not a marketing-type presentation), and they ask many follow-up questions on it.

Questions

Tell me about a really tough technical problem that you worked on.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 2 interview experiences for the Tesla Senior Firmware Engineer role in Palo Alto, California.

Success Rate

100%

Pass Rate

Tesla's interview process for their Senior Firmware Engineer roles in Palo Alto, California is incredibly easy as the vast majority of engineers get an offer after going through it.

Experience Rating

Positive100%

Neutral0%

Negative0%

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

Tesla Work Experiences

Fun projects and a pretty good work environment

Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: The projects at Tesla are fun to work on. Project timelines are very fast-paced, which means limited work-life balance. However, the kind of person hired at Tesla won't see this as a con. Due to long working hours and a stressful environment, your coworkers are more like family. It's run more like a startup than a huge corporation. This means projects go from prototype to production quickly, which can be stressful.

Cons: Long-term company stability is a real issue. There have been two rounds of layoffs in the past year, and these have affected mostly full-time employees and a lot of engineers. Due to this, morale is in decline. On most teams, engineer employee turnover is relatively low as compared to most of the Bay Area. Management turnover, on the other hand, is really high. Pay is also low for the Bay Area, especially due to the low stock price.

Fun projects and a pretty good work environment

Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: The projects at Tesla are fun to work on. Project timelines are very fast-paced, which means limited work-life balance. However, the kind of person hired at Tesla won't see this as a con. Due to long working hours and a stressful environment, your coworkers are more like family. It's run more like a startup than a huge corporation. This means projects go from prototype to production quickly, which can be stressful.

Cons: Long-term company stability is a real issue. There have been two rounds of layoffs in the past year, and these have affected mostly full-time employees and a lot of engineers. Due to this, morale is in decline. On most teams, engineer employee turnover is relatively low as compared to most of the Bay Area. Management turnover, on the other hand, is really high. Pay is also low for the Bay Area, especially due to the low stock price.

Best place to work ever

Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Interesting tasks. Flexible schedule. Amazing product.

Cons: Tasks' priorities are being switched too often.

Best place to work ever

Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Interesting tasks. Flexible schedule. Amazing product.

Cons: Tasks' priorities are being switched too often.

Great mission, fantastic coworkers

Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

September 14, 2016

Pros: Smartest people I've ever worked with; almost everyone is expert level. Elon is inspirational, if a little insane. Great feeling of actually doing something useful for humanity. Management actually makes good decisions most of the time. Benefits are better than the salary.

Cons: Identity crisis of not being a startup but also not a mature company. Mediocre pay, worst-case scenario for finding a decent commute or an affordable home. Depending on what area you work in, work-life balance can be off. I personally never felt pressured to work when I didn't want to; friends of mine at the company experienced this.

Great mission, fantastic coworkers

Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

September 14, 2016

Pros: Smartest people I've ever worked with; almost everyone is expert level. Elon is inspirational, if a little insane. Great feeling of actually doing something useful for humanity. Management actually makes good decisions most of the time. Benefits are better than the salary.

Cons: Identity crisis of not being a startup but also not a mature company. Mediocre pay, worst-case scenario for finding a decent commute or an affordable home. Depending on what area you work in, work-life balance can be off. I personally never felt pressured to work when I didn't want to; friends of mine at the company experienced this.

Fun projects and a pretty good work environment

Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: The projects at Tesla are fun to work on. Project timelines are very fast-paced, which means limited work-life balance. However, the kind of person hired at Tesla won't see this as a con. Due to long working hours and a stressful environment, your coworkers are more like family. It's run more like a startup than a huge corporation. This means projects go from prototype to production quickly, which can be stressful.

Cons: Long-term company stability is a real issue. There have been two rounds of layoffs in the past year, and these have affected mostly full-time employees and a lot of engineers. Due to this, morale is in decline. On most teams, engineer employee turnover is relatively low as compared to most of the Bay Area. Management turnover, on the other hand, is really high. Pay is also low for the Bay Area, especially due to the low stock price.

5.0
Fun projects and a pretty good work environment
Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
April 25, 2019
Pros: The projects at Tesla are fun to work on. Project timelines are very fast-paced, which means limited work-life balance. However, the kind of person hired at Tesla won't see this as a con. Due to long working hours and a stressful environment, your coworkers are more like family. It's run more like a startup than a huge corporation. This means projects go from prototype to production quickly, which can be stressful.
Cons: Long-term company stability is a real issue. There have been two rounds of layoffs in the past year, and these have affected mostly full-time employees and a lot of engineers. Due to this, morale is in decline. On most teams, engineer employee turnover is relatively low as compared to most of the Bay Area. Management turnover, on the other hand, is really high. Pay is also low for the Bay Area, especially due to the low stock price.

Best place to work ever

Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Interesting tasks. Flexible schedule. Amazing product.

Cons: Tasks' priorities are being switched too often.

5.0
Best place to work ever
Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
August 8, 2017
Pros: Interesting tasks. Flexible schedule. Amazing product.
Cons: Tasks' priorities are being switched too often.

Great mission, fantastic coworkers

Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

September 14, 2016

Pros: Smartest people I've ever worked with; almost everyone is expert level. Elon is inspirational, if a little insane. Great feeling of actually doing something useful for humanity. Management actually makes good decisions most of the time. Benefits are better than the salary.

Cons: Identity crisis of not being a startup but also not a mature company. Mediocre pay, worst-case scenario for finding a decent commute or an affordable home. Depending on what area you work in, work-life balance can be off. I personally never felt pressured to work when I didn't want to; friends of mine at the company experienced this.

4.0
Great mission, fantastic coworkers
Senior Firmware Engineer • Current Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
September 14, 2016
Pros: Smartest people I've ever worked with; almost everyone is expert level. Elon is inspirational, if a little insane. Great feeling of actually doing something useful for humanity. Management actually makes good decisions most of the time. Benefits are better than the salary.
Cons: Identity crisis of not being a startup but also not a mature company. Mediocre pay, worst-case scenario for finding a decent commute or an affordable home. Depending on what area you work in, work-life balance can be off. I personally never felt pressured to work when I didn't want to; friends of mine at the company experienced this.

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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