Pros
Completely casual dress code
Flexibility to work from home when needed
Always interesting to work at the factory
If you look at the SEC filings, you can see that the top people are basically compensated the same as the other employees, which is a pleasant surprise.
Many “beautiful people” here (male and female). Lots of eye candy.
A lot of people complain about the pay, but they paid me more than my last company, where I had the same title
LGBT friendly
The product is cool, and really fun to drive
If you’re in the right department, you might be able to drive a Tesla somewhat regularly. If not, there is an ongoing contest where you can be randomly selected to take one home for a couple of nights
The company is still growing
There is room to move geographically within Service, since Tesla owns the Service Centers
Lots of “car guy” coworkers to keep conversations interesting
Benefits actually got better and cheaper every year from 2012-2015, and stayed similar after that. I guess this was due to the company growing and getting better group rates. Regardless, not many people can say that.
You’ll frequently come to work that day expecting to work on a certain project and end up on something totally different. This can be good and bad.
Starting hours are typically flexible, which is a really nice perk. Nobody is making sure you’re in your seat at a certain time.
Most employees are surprisingly responsive and friendly.
Very heavy email-based communication, and it mostly works quite well.
You get good at doing the best you can with the resources you have, rather than doing the best possible job. This isn’t necessarily a complaint, since it’s a valuable skill to have, but you should consider if you’re going to be okay in that kind of environment before applying.
Cons
Rare to be recognized, let alone thanked, for going above and beyond to accomplish something out of the ordinary. Once you've "done the impossible", it's just assumed that you can and will do it again and again from now on.
Literally hundreds of people in one room, desks on top of each other, as many as possible in every little space. Companies claim that they’re being “modern” and “progressive” by not having offices and cubicles, but they’re just being cheap. Look at pictures of offices from the 1950’s. You’ll see the same hundreds of desks in a room.
Yearly raises are typically less than the cost of living
Work/life balance is mediocre at best
Smallish yearly bonuses in the form of golden handcuffs. RSUs that vest over 4 years, so you’ll wait a long time to benefit from them
Those who were hired before mid-2013 made a lot of money off stock options, but many of those people are leaving now that all of their options are used up.
Revolving door. It’s hard to last more than a couple of years here.
It’s always seemingly a few steps away from massive failure
Very few processes in place, so work is done extremely inefficiently
Very common to compose an email and see “This is no longer a valid Tesla address”
The entire Service organization shares one budget. I am scrimping to save $50 on software while a barely-related manager wastes literally tens of thousands of dollars a week on cool toys, and it all comes from the same place.
Everything’s urgent, and people try to name-drop that Elon’s watching this very project so I need to stop everything for them. Luckily those of us who have been around for a while see right through that charade.
Technically, no 401(k) match, though if you’re careful with the health benefits you choose, you can end up with some leftover that can be diverted into the 401(k).
Middle managers are very hit-and-miss. Many were promoted because a manager was needed and they were the only one who knew anything about the department. Much room for improvement here.
Minimal leadership training. No real employee development opportunities. The results are just as bad as you’d expect.
Massive inter-departmental struggles. Most of my problems can be traced to one power-hungry manager of a sister department. It only takes one person to ruin the work lives of many people.
There are more meetings than I expected from this kind of company. Elon sent a great email about how wasteful meetings are, but people have fallen into old bad habits.
Completely ineffective HR department
Every department is grossly understaffed, just barely above the point of collapse. Nearly everyone has to work harder than they would if they were doing the same job at another company.
Anything that they can do in house, they’ll do, rather than outsourcing to a supplier. There are people who spend their whole careers deciding “make vs. buy”… no need for them here, it seems. This is corporate arrogance, and it reduces quality, wastes human resources, and slows time to market in many cases. A positive side effect is that more products are made here in California than would be if they were outsourced.
Inadequate parking
Note to hiring managers at other companies: Watch out if someone from Tesla has “Project Manager” on their title. Many of these people are just general office workers with no skills beyond harassing people via email.