Great People - Manager Tesla Employee Review

Cons

Tough hours for those who aren’t used to high expectations

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.