Tesla

The most notable pro is the plethora of experience you will get the opportunity to be involved in extremely quickly. If you want to kickstart your career or add incredible experience to your résumé, this can be the place. If you are a high achiever, you have the opportunity to move up the ladder fast. This comes with notable cons (see below):

The bathroom situation in the office is verging on inhumane. Be prepared to take a proverbial DMV number and wait in line every time nature calls.

There is way too much work on very questionable timelines, and not enough people to execute it. Your previous fast-paced job has nothing on this.

There is no break after finishing a large project. You will be expected to go from project to project to project with no lull in between. Be prepared to sacrifice your family and personal life for the benefit of Tesla.

Invest in a very good pair of noise-canceling headphones. The office is extremely crowded, and you will work by the side of 1000 other engineers, shoulder to shoulder. (Think Wolf of Wall Street call center pitching penny stocks without the added entertainment).

As an esteemed member of Tesla HQ, you will be parking on the far side of the building, and you will be expected to take a 20-minute smelly shuttle ride around to where you actually work. Be prepared for this to add 45 minutes daily to your commute.

The hiring process for the design management and program manager team leaves much to be desired. From experience, most people in these roles at Tesla tend to have little to no background in the fields they are meant to be overseeing. The design managers tend to be new engineers/interns (yes, interns) with bare minimal engineering or design experience. They are hired into positions where they are meant to oversee a project from start to finish, inclusive of project definition and required inputs, funding, cradle-to-grave timelines, discipline coordination, code navigation, and closeouts.

This puts the lead discipline engineers in extremely precarious positions, as you are constantly forced to battle against ignorance just to do your job correctly. This will most certainly be the toughest part of your engineering role at Tesla.

There needs to be much more focus on the care of employees and cultivating a work culture and environment that thrives on keeping talented employees for years to come. You will work until you get burned out, and then you will move on, and you will be replaced by the next number in line.