Tesla

The work you'll do is incredible. We have interns responsible for parts going into production. Of course, we review and approve everything.

This job is what you make of it. If you are a stellar performer, people notice it and you will advance.

The company has gotten a lot better with work-life balance, at least in the vehicle engineering org. Managers are flexible, allowing for coming in late occasionally, leaving early occasionally, and working from home under certain circumstances.

For a "tech" job in the Bay Area, compensation is pretty low. At least, it feels that way. You make about $100K and get about $100K of stock.

Everyone is very young and ambitious, and sometimes it feels competitive. This is fine, but a lot of people can't handle the pressure, so they describe it as an unfriendly environment when, in reality, it's very friendly. Extroverted engineers do very well here.

Sometimes promotions are totally subjective and depend on how professional people "sound" rather than their output. I've seen people get close with their managers and get promoted when others are outputting much more valuable work.

Try to get more personal with engineers.

Try to develop relationships with them instead of always being strictly technical and business. You'll retain more engineers.

Start giving way larger stock grants. A $100K stock grant at this point doesn't seem like much, considering the market cap of the company. Yes, Tesla will be a trillion-dollar company, but that's only another 5x gain. A lot of people won't stay for the four years, so giving more stock shouldn't be a big deal.