Tesla

Automation

May - August 2018 • Fremont, CA

What I liked

Tesla gave me a lot of accountability and the freedom to pursue what is most interesting to me. You would not imagine it. I could easily ask my manager to take tours around different Tesla facilities, hop over to other teams to see what they do and spend a day with them, take a day off from my normal job to work on the assembly line, as long as I got my job done, of course. However, I also set my own timelines for projects, project manage my own tasks, and sat in a lot of very important meetings. I was only about 4-5 levels from Elon Musk in the company directory , so in general the company is very flat! Elon and JB's office is also open, and you can just peek over your shoulder and see JB coding away everyday in Palo Alto, and Elon walking around his favorite area overlooking the Fremont factory. You are allowed and encouraged to email anyone above you if you want to learn more or need to get something done. Everyone on every team responds instantly. It's the people who CAN'T get stuff done that stand out among the crowd because everybody works extremely hard. Despite how hard people work, the social life was amazing. My team came in before I woke up on my Birthday, wrapped my desk and gave me a ton of cupcakes and presents. One of them was also a pilot and flew me to Napa valley for a wine tasting tour. We would have a full team outing for every occasion. The people became what I remember most from this summer.

What I wish was different

I was not treated like an intern, instead, a full time employee, so I was mostly on my own in terms of code review and mentorship. I was never told what to do, and had to figure out my own plans and projects based on the team's roadmap. I had to frequently ask for mentorship or help from full time employees and pester them to review my code. In addition, since priorities change so often (my summer was the summer Tesla tried to hit 5,000 cars a week), I was pulled into different tasks very often and had to keep myself up to date about what was going on. There were also a lot of people leaving due to the huge layoff. It was very eye opening to see a company going through a huge change, especially when you are in the middle of it. I cried in the middle of a meeting when my manager told me he was leaving during the middle of my internship. Nothing really could have been done about this, but I just wished I was more prepared for the realities that came with a fast-moving company.

Advice

Make the most out of your experience. Don't just sit down at your desk and do work. Go out and talk to other people, learn what they do in the company, and spend some time working with them to learn about their setbacks and successes. I am most likely returning to a team who let me sit in one of their meetings and showed me around Tesla HQ for ONE DAY, and learned my most valuable lessons from the production associates working on the assembly line. I also got Tesla to sponsor a 15K senior design project this year!

127 ${count} people found this helpful

Production Associate

April - August 2018 • Sparks, NV

What I liked

I enjoyed the ability to work at night while being able to attend school during the day. The ability to work up to 30 hours of overtime per week was also a huge benefit.

What I wish was different

I wish that management would actually listen to employees.

Advice

Great experience and great way for an engineering student to get their foot into the door.

Be the first to mark this as helpful

mainenance technician

June 2018 • Sparks, NV

What I liked

I enjoyed the hands on experience working with expensive robots and automation systems. Not only were you able to learn mechanical work but how the programming worked too.

What I wish was different

I wish I was given a formal robotic and programming course to go through to be trained more.

Advice

be ready to learn as you go and don't expect everything to be taught to you.

1 One person found this helpful

Mechanical enginnering intern

May - August 2018 • Fremont, CA

What I liked

Amazing company, very fast paced and passionate

What I wish was different

I wish it was my full time job

Advice

Shoot for the stars, be a self starter

Be the first to mark this as helpful

Quality Engineer Intern

June - September 2017 • Fremont, CA

What I liked

The internship was very hands on, and I was given my own projects to work on. The experience felt much like a real job so it was an invaluable experience for me.

What I wish was different

Since my internship began in June, whereas semester school students had started earlier than me, the beginning of the internship was slower paced because the other interns on my team had already claimed several larger projects for themselves. That said, I still found smaller projects and day-to-day issues to work on before getting larger projects to work on.

Advice

Be ready to be thrown into the job from day one. It was very fast paced but there are a lot of great people at the company that are willing to help, but it'll only happen if you aren't afraid to ask for help.

3 ${count} people found this helpful

Engineering Intern - Quality

June - September 2017 • Fremont, CA

What I liked

The amount of responsibility you're given at work and with it the knowledge you learn from tackling difficult problems.

What I wish was different

Only the cost of living in the bay area, but that's hard to control.

Advice

Make sure you absorb as much information as you possibly can and learn about things you're not yet familiar with. Just make the most of your time on your internship.

5 ${count} people found this helpful

Workplace Operations, Intern

June 2017 • Palo Alto, CA

What I liked

I was very involved and treated just as any employee. I never felt like I was at the bottom at the food chain being an intern. I was given mass amounts of responsibility.

What I wish was different

I wish there had been a more formal training process.

Advice

Say yes to everything and meet as many people as you can.

Be the first to mark this as helpful

Software Engineering Intern

September 2017 • Fremont, CA

What I liked

Lots of high value, interesting work.

What I wish was different

Much more corporate than I expected.

Advice

Buckle up, it's going to be a wild ride!

3 ${count} people found this helpful

Mechanical Design Intern

May - August 2018 • Palo Alto, CA

What I liked

Learned a lot, exciting company

What I wish was different

Advice

1 One person found this helpful

Technical Program Manager Intern

June - September 2018 • Fremont, CA

What I liked

Lots of experience, it is always very fun, fast paced and exciting. I had a lot of responsibility as an intern, which gave me chances to learn.

What I wish was different

N/A

Advice

Make a lot of connections early. As a PM it is important to have a network within the company if you want things to get done.

3 ${count} people found this helpful

Customer Experience Specialist

September 2017 • Boston, MA

What I liked

I really enjoyed learning more about the vehicles technological functions. I was given a better understanding of autopilot functionalities and other great applications in the vehicles. My poisition currently is a sales poisition where I learned more on financing/leasing etc. for the products. I also learned more about internship opportunities at Tesla with interal connections that I developed a long the way. This led to my visit at the factory in Freemot where I was able to see the software engineers in person (my dream internship).

What I wish was different

Nothing.

Advice

I think it's really important to see job opportunities in college as an out of school knowledge opportunity. You can work part-time at great industries that provide you with knowledge that you would never know in college that can go hand in hand with your major.

5 ${count} people found this helpful

Architectural Intern

June - August 2018 • Fremont, CA

What I liked

Great technical experience

What I wish was different

More creativity

Advice

It was a great introduction into the field but I would advice switching up your internships year to year so as to get various types of experience until you find one you really feel passionate about

1 One person found this helpful

Systems integration

June - September 2018 • Palo Alto, CA

What I liked

The team was very diverse in the projects it dealt with. I was able to learn how the system works as a whole as well as gain insight from a higher level perspective. It was technical yet still involved a lot of moving around and communicating.

What I wish was different

Things went by very quickly, i didn’t get a chance to get as deep of an understanding in some topic areas as I would have liked.

Advice

Definitely try different types of companies, each work environment, culture, even team is completely different. I’ve been at Tesla twice, both teams were two completely different experiences.

3 ${count} people found this helpful