Tesla

The vision was great in 2013, and still kind of is. The cars are fun to drive, there are bright, dedicated people, and the swag looks good. Tesla looks great on a resume and will definitely serve as a stepping stone. The coolness factor perception from the outside is pretty nice.

You can be very proud of the products during launch days. The cars are just downright cool.

The culture is a facade. The bright, dedicated people I mentioned are taking better offers. The company/stock is always on the brink of collapse.

Elon overpromises, and it’s looked down upon if you’re not doing 10-12 hours a day with weekends to fulfill those promises. Working at Tesla for 3.5 years is like 5 years in equivalent hours. There are no organized standard interview procedures.

Production and everyone else dislike and avoid each other like the plague. There are elitist attitudes from anyone not in production. Production does have large numbers of unskilled, unprofessional workers, but engineers still need a lot of design for manufacturing training. The divide is unwarranted since almost everyone is green. The experienced almost always leave.

It's top-down leadership, and VPs really do think they’re better than everyone. Terrible attitudes of coworkers are left free to act out. The in-house Prototyping Shop has had a mass exodus of CNC programmers resign. The entire original team is gone.

By the way, there is lower than industry-standard pay, small stock amounts, no food, and no matching 401k.

The culture is wrong. Elon is demanding, and that trickles down. You can get good work without imposing your will on already exhausted workers. My exit interviewer was 30 minutes late because she does so many exits a day. Just think about that.

The cars are really cool, though.