I worked for Tesla for a year and a half before being laid off. I enjoyed my position, and knew the ever-changing policies in-and-out. It is true that they change policies more often than it is possible to keep up with. It's also true that if you're a fast-paced, collaborative worker, you probably will anyway.
They'd routinely change policies and critical systems overnight with little warning, and training for the new system would occur on the day it launched, resulting in an inefficient work environment where you spent much of your working hours figuring out how they wanted you to do your job. That is, if the systems you needed were up and running at all. It seemed like they were constantly cutting bandwidth to see how little they could get away with, because even existing systems would get slower and slower and less stable every month. Maintaining a consistent workflow was almost impossible.
My job was paid hourly, and though I was repeatedly informed that overtime was not required, if I didn't work overtime, then not all of the work would get done, because our team was THAT understaffed. In the call center environment, we would often have customers waiting upwards of an hour to reach someone, if they did at all. Then they cut the team by an additional 20%. As you could imagine, morale was not great.
A result of the layoff cycle is that the entire team is anxious about whether they'll have a job in the coming weeks, all the time. This is true regardless of your s
ProsSupervisors were understanding, work was usually rewarding, benefits are amazing and start on day one.
Consno work-life balance, no job security, no corporate direction or focus, they'll cut you and say it's to 'accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy'.
Great overall goal, But a very deceptive, poorly managed, two faced company
I worked for solar city for 5 years as a master electrician, having over 15 years of construction and electrical experience, and I was treated the same as the newest employee off the street who had no experience what so ever. I understand everyone needs to start out somewhere, and solarcity use to be a good starting point for someone looking to get into the solar industry with no previous exeperince, But now, it's turned into a joke. There's ridiculous, repetitious training that makes everyone believe they are all electricians. Training which lacks tremendously on the very important electrical safety aspect of the job, and electrical theory. I've worked with guys for years here that still didn't understand the basic first day apprentice electrical safety or theory. This training doesn't show how to take pride in your work or give you any sort of real knowledge in construction. It takes several years to be a decent electrician, and many years to learn construction.
Solarcity, show the guys with exeperince, knowledge and seniority some repect. Give the guys something to work towards. Guys with exeperince and seniority should be higher up the ladder than the 18 year old new kid from the streets. Give raises and promotions to the guys that deserve it and have the exeperince.
Since day one, pay was sub par, especially for someone with a masters license. The bonus system put in place did, for a while, make up for the lack of proper pay, which was why I stuck around for so lo
TLDR; Come for the word 'TESLA' on your resume. Leave for your sanity.
Being hired early on in Buffalo to the AP team, I only spent a few months as a Data Annotation Specialist before being promoted (?) to LEAD Data Annotation Specialist.
Pros: You meet a lot of cool folks. Vision insurance is top notch.
Cons: Basically, everything else.
Imagine a company whose mission statement is to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. Now imagine that same company asking 500+ people to travel to a warehouse/factory to sit at a desk for 8 (EXACTLY 8, don't you dare go over or under) hours doing something that can 100% be done at home. Consider the gasoline, time, money, emissions, and traffic build up from 500+ people going to ONE place every day, for no decent reason. Does that seem sustainable to you?
You accrue Vacation/Sick time at a snail's pace. If you are out of 'sick' time, but have a plethora of 'vacation' time, and have to go home in the middle of the day, you will be forced to take an attendance occurrence instead of the leadership team compromising and pulling from your vacation bank due to PoLiCy. If you run out of sick time, you are literally SOL, and will NOT be allowed to leave without points against you (that inhibit your ability for any promotions, oops). And you accrue 1.33 hours of sick time a week. To get one full 8 hour sick day, it'll take you over a month. Imagine trying to schedule doctor's appointments, go to your kid's school events, be
High stress job with a heavy workload, great benefits.
A typical day in the life of a Solar City Auditor:
Wake up at roughly 6am, drive to meet your co-worker, hop in a Solar City vehicle and draw a rough sketch-up of the home you're about to audit.
As a field engineer, it is on your shoulders to make sure the amount of solar panels Solar City has quoted the client / the client wants will fit on the client's roof. To do this, you have to audit the home for the Designers who are going to be looking through the information you gather on-site in order to speed up the process of designing the system for the client.
The job goes in these stages: 360 degree photo walkthrough of the outside of the home, put up ladder and tie in to the roof (fall protection gear get's screwed in to a stud on the roof), get on roof and measure out the mounting planes (also take a 360 photo set of the roof), measure out and document all obstructions on the mounting planes, go inside attic, 360 photo set of the attic, measure the truss on the mounting planes, sketch the truss w/measurements, make sure you're not covered in insulation, clean up and move on to the next home.
Mind you, while you're doing all of this, it's typically above 95 degrees Fahrenheit and you're helping the client through the whole process (basically performing customer service and acting as an encyclopedia of knowledge).
Overall, as the job goes, it's not that hard. Some homes are more difficult than others to audit, however the work usually goes quite quickly when yo
ProsDecent pay, Room for advancement
ConsHeavy workload, Dental coverage, Time Consuming, Stressfull, Work weekends
Right so, I've been working here just over a year. I started as a normal production associate and moved on up from there (by way of sheer luck).
A typical day at Tesla starts at 3:30. AM or PM, it does not matter. You get up after sleeping for AT BEST 7 hours, and be on the road by 4:50 depending on where you live. God forbid you get stuck in the traffic because you will then be forced to compete in the LaSparks rally trying to race down I-80, hope you don't get into a major accident surrounded by the other thousand or so sleep deprived people that you're on the road with, and eventually you land at Tesla. Oh and hope you're not late, because they will ding ya.
A typical start of the week is usually a massive mess to clean up from the previous shift pretty much just giving up. You will deal with either a high-stress, high-paced, aggravating work environment or have a day where all the lines are down and you are sat there for 12 god-loving hours trying to hope you dont get in trouble for sitting. Everyone on production goes to lunch at around the same time, so good luck getting your food from the cafe before lunch is over. You do get a 15 minute break before then, but that's not enough time to get to the break areas. There's a grand total of 3 that are used frequently. They have over priced gas station food, or the main cafe has some outside company come in and cook
And make sure you're not late coming back from break, because they will ding ya.
Before then you're
ProsLyra services for your brain. Some good health benefits
ConsStuck up folk everywhere, "Ohgod dont hit me" traffic, pay, management is in flux at best, PTO is slow to accumulate considering the 12 hour shifts, MANDATORY OVER TIME
No professional development or advancement structure for anyone, even though they claim there is. If you ask what the company will provide you for professional development, the answer is silence. If you want to rise from an installer to a project manager, that’s ok, but anyone else in a support role the organization is ineligible for true advancement.
People are hired and paid according to whim; there is no pay equity among similar job classification. They have no compensation structure for the company as a whole, yet it has grown to 3,000 people. And, your manager may make $100,000 more than you.
People promoted according to whim – they create new positions all the time just so they can give people huge raises.
Lack of diversity at the top. Look at the SC website, and you will get a sense of this lack of diversity. People of color are very few and far between in positions of senior management.
The company wants you to think they are squeaky clean in complying with various laws, but in fact there is always a strategy to cut corners and get around rules.
If you need help and you are not considered one of the higher-ups, you won’t get the support you need without a lot of complaining. They are SLOW. Your work is meaningless to them.
There is no meaningful structure to lodge complaints about how things should run differently – there are no defined ways to recommend improvements or identify issues, even though you may ask. It’s as if they don’t really w
I was employed with the company for a year and have seen a large number of people come and go. This was either due to Tesla hiring literally anyone off the street that could pass a background check, or people becoming fed up with the disorganization, poor management, or poor leadership that goes on at the gigafactory. The recruiters and other associates you will listen to at orientation have little to no idea what’s is going on, and if they think they do it is because they are going based off of outdated experience within the company. They will try to paint you a pretty picture of what it is like to work at the gigafactory, but take that with a grain of salt. This is a corporate job through and through and is ran like one. The disorganization and lack of experience in management is astonishing. They do not know nor understand how the departments they are responsible for function, and they have absolutely no interest in trying to learn when issues arise that require their immediate attention. They will simply kick the can down the road so someone else could be held responsible. Training is a joke and you will have to rely on yourself or a trusted coworker for help. I had to correct a training document put together by someone well above my pay grade because It contained incorrect information. Had it been followed someone could have gotten seriously injured. Attendance is a very controversial subject. There is a strict policy currently in place which every supervisor is supposed
A woefully dis-organized, and unreasonably toxic workplace with high pay.
Unless you really need the money (which is the only thing tesla has) dodge this company like the plague! its a sinking ship looking for anyone to blame for its failures. "pass the buck" rings true here.
the Turn-over is rediculously high and Tesla will go out of its way to instill an elitist notion into whoever joins up that most people simply "cant hack it" this is beyond false. the turn-over is as intended.
The drive to and from is long and un-safe with too many employees resorting to speeding in which to avoid Tesla's bottlenecked entrances and rigid attendance policy.
Car crashes are regular because of this, at least one every 2-3 weeks and you must travel hours before your shift to accommodate for this bottleneck. Tesla will take no responsibility for this.
most associates don't last 8 months on average.
recruiters wont tell you this.
Don't make friends, you or they' wont last.
Tesla is not above firing hundreds of employees in a single day without severance pay, without reason, and without remorse.
they actually call this action "culling the herd" or
"scraping off the barnacles"
and is has become more frequent as the company continues to fail.
this is NOT an exaggeration.
The work itself, is unbalanced, poorly organized, un-collaborative and non-ergonomic monotonous labor that will tax your body and soul
no matter how fit or strong you are. Tesla will callously chew you up, spit you out, and tell you its your fault.
too many of those who have
Some great people at Tesla, but the overwhelming amount of incompetence supersedes the talented employees. Like others have stated: Nepotism on a level that undermines the quality of the product. Totally unqualified HS dropouts promoted over College grads, and real world military combat veterans with management skills and smarts. The culture is extremely left wing, but there's lots of "street culture" and "thug culture" workforce to balance out the Soy-boy's & Feminazi in management. Free cereal, coffee, and drinks, but very little time for breaks. Safety is not a concern at Tesla and there are LOTS of injuries. No one really cares when someone is seriously injured. There is definitely strong DISCRIMINATION against anyone that is old which translates to anyone over the age of 35. Production Associates are treated like dumb animals (whereas I'm basically saying most of them are) but if you're hired into Material Handler or Production Associate with a College Degree, you're just another number. You'll work next to ex-felons, ex-homeless, low-level educated people. You do not matter. You are a slave. If you try to transfer, HR does nothing to help you. Supervisors are narcissistic and see hundreds of employees come and go on a monthly basis, so why would they care? Most Leads/Supervisors walk around talking on their phones, or stand and talk with other Leads/Supervisors or friends. Some Leads are FANTASTIC. Driving to and from work is a DEATHRACE of road rage, and obscene lev
ProsGreat benefits, stocks options, Real Diversity co-workers, Easy work.
ConsShort breaks, Poor Management, Unsafe work conditions, Deadly daily commute, Bad Work/Life Balance
Assuming they sold out to China. They don't care about Americans.
This is a luxury brand name that has supervisors that do no see an issue with sewage from mobile restrooms being hosed down in a manner that only pushes and spreads the sewages into the work site and everywhere. Refers the production worker as emotional and forces them to use the what should be out of order restrooms when there were other options for restrooms. There seems to be a lacking of common sense and the appointed leadership such as the supervisors are very undeveloped and young. This will be one of the reasons to tesla down fall if they don't nip it in the butt soon. The whole organization is college age obsessed and overlooks those with the actual skill and experience.
I was hired through an agency that claims representatives are on site to no avail. They just tell you to talk to a supervisor that tell you to talk to your agency. Pay is decent but not secure given with only 1 week of working there your supposed supervisor who's only previous job experience was McDonald (yes they bragged on the first day) requests a performance review after you followed instructions from both agency and company and pointed out to them the flaws setting employees up for failure.
Was streamlined to wrongful termination (the perks of a company using temp agencies....avoiding liability). dependent on "recruiters" helping them ship out workers from stockton, modesto, tracy and even farther away. Mind you.... these workers do not even know where places like Mountain View/Palo alto are eve
A typical day in the life of Tesla looks like a few of us Customer Experience Specialists (CES) being prepared for serious buyers or curious tourists that would like to know more about how a Tesla could fit better into their life than the current car. We are educated of how the car performs, how it charges, insurance policies, price breakdowns, the history of electric vehicles, the impact on the environment, passion for our mission, and most importantly social skills. If we are not talking about our cars, we are communicating and tracking updates with other people who we have previously worked with.
This has taught me the proper ways to handle customer conversation, satisfaction, and dissatisfaction. I have always needed to find creative and resourceful ways to tailor the conversation to a way the customer would best find fit. For example, for an elderly couple with no kids, I would not emphasize the seating room in our SUV that has the highest performance of any car in it's class. I would talk about the reliability of the car in the long run and it's highest safety rating ever tested by the National Highway Traffic Association. I also developed strong speaking skills and a confidence in knowing that I work for the most innovative and groundbreaking car company in the nation. This has helped me significantly when doing projects or presentations in school.
The people whom I worked with were a group of young individuals that I highly respected for their commitment to the
ProsWorking for a company who's mission I believed in
ConsBeing the youngest of the group I worked with made me feel at times inexperienced.
Questions And Answers about Tesla
What is the best part of working at Tesla?
Asked Dec 22, 2019
Working with the rebotic machines was always fascinating
Answered May 16, 2022
The benefits
Answered May 11, 2022
If you were in charge, what would you do to make Tesla a better place to work?
Asked Mar 23, 2018
Give my employees an hour lunch... can you believe working a 12 hour shift to only get a 30 minute lunch?!
Answered Dec 1, 2021
Realistic Expectations for every employee, Less contract employees and more permanent employees with options of learning new things via education and guidance, Opening the door to new opportunities for the people who have been there over a year. A sit down and a personal aspiration evaluation would be a great thing. Everyone can provide something for the company, it doesn't have to always be about a paycheck, it can be more than that to most especially to newer employees, and to those who aspire to become more.
Answered Nov 15, 2021
What advice would you give the CEO of Tesla about how to improve it?
Asked May 9, 2018
I would revamp the hiring process and enforce recruiters coming back to the office instead of working from home. There's next to no communication and insane delays in relaying information. Recruiters are next to impossible to follow up with, via email, call or text. A good example is my own case: I was set up for the wrong drug screen, no one knew until I called nine days later to see what was up, then it took an additional three days to get me the right form for the correct drug screen. Or the online training as an example: I receive a link to access the training, however, the login info was excluded, it took a week to receive that information. I'm going on forty days, which is unusual for industry standards for the type of work I'd be performing.
Answered Jan 19, 2022
Plan better so shorten hours when things go well
Answered Oct 22, 2021
How are the working hours at Tesla?
Asked Jul 14, 2016
At first was told 12 hour shift for 4 days and now have been told 12 hour days for 5-6 days. So basically I'll never see my family or have any time to my self. Just work work work until I drop I guess.
Answered Oct 13, 2020
I got an email to pick my start date. I choose January 21. Now I got a call stating the company is pushing back our start date and they won’t know when. It frustrates me!
Answered Jan 18, 2019
What tips or advice would you give to someone interviewing at Tesla?
Asked Oct 18, 2017
Dress well even though the job your applying for does not require it, they will take a well groomed slacker over a jeans and t-shirt worker.
