Tesla

Mobility

• Direct mobility (level I -> level II) is a total mixed bag that depends on opportunities to show your skills and the quality of your direct management.
• "Diagonal" mobility is fantastic. If you can learn some basic skills that are relevant to positions and solve some problems, then you can take a path like Production associate -> process technician -> engineering technician -> Engineer. Although that's the road less-traveled, people do it here often enough.

Compensation

Again, a mixed bag. It completely depends on your department, level, management, and company goals. There tends to be an annual or bi-annual bonus that can be taken as stock, stock options, or cash. There is also ESPP, which is functionally a stock savings account with 15% incentives. Free therapy. Healthcare is phenomenal.

There are some perks Tesla occasionally has with local things, from Uber to sport ticket discounts, too. The benefit package really is a part of your pay.

Management

• If you have a great manager, then you're going to succeed here. People are rated on the social metric of not being unbearable to be around, and HR takes complaints seriously if you know how to present them.

Diversity

• A super diverse place. I have worked for many people who fall into categories of LGBTQ, POC, women, and migrants. Tesla is very skills-forward, and any walk of life can have a successful career here (myself included).

Mobility

• Mobility, in the leveling sense, can be downright insulting at the basic technician, material handling, or production associate level. I had lead job offers in hand, and a supervisor still did not give me a review that indicated moving from level I to level II. It wasn't until my 3rd mobility promotion that I finally saw a level-up, and it was kind of ridiculous.

Compensation

• The bonuses are received annually if you're meeting performance goals, but the money from those bonuses typically pays out over multiple years. So, you will just miss out if you are buckled into Tesla for the foreseeable future. Non-technical hourly rates had to catch up to the industry, but they largely have.

Management

• Managers just have a crazy amount of power over you and, depending on the department, minimal oversight. This can leave you stuck. To make career moves, I felt the need to wait until some managers were on extended leave so I could exit a department where I wasn't growing. (Told directly I would be held as long as allowable if offered a role elsewhere in Tesla).

Culture & Values

• Another mixed bag. Lots of young, passionate, very smart folks. Lots of people I just don't like. But sometimes safety is a risk on the factory floor if you don't have your head on a swivel. And sometimes innovation is emphasized to the point of wasted energy on changes that provide limited or no benefit, so people have it on their review reports.

Senior management

• Makes me nervous to see them because it's pretty rare. Not typically great news. The higher up I go, the more I see that these guys are just super busy. But still, you don't get the sense that they understand the process or workflow all the time.

Work/life balance

• It depends massively on company goals and where you work. In general, it's an intense place to work, and you can really mess up your career with attendance early on. However, once you've proven yourself, you can get away with a little more. You always have to meet the metrics, though.

Factory floor-level managers should be intensely focused on training employees to move to more technical positions. This entry point into Tesla builds a lot of skills, and when new people see folks promoting to new departments, it inspires goodwill towards Tesla, letting them know that those opportunities are not just legends.