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Comment by rw2 | Hacker News Reader

I think the quality of engineering talent at Space X is probably higher. Having lived with and met a couple of Tesla Engineers, they seem to optimize for ability to work insane hours and accept lower salaries. The result is that Tesla does not have as many people from top engineering schools. This probably doesn't apply to early Tesla employees who seems much more qualified.

I'm sure there is a reason for this and it might be a better approach for scaling production.

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> top engineering schools

That is an elitist conceit that is irrelevant to the actual practice of engineering.

I managed in Silicon Valley for about ten years, and did the university recruiting rounds every season to find people. I probably met and sceened around five thousand university students during this period.

There really IS a difference. The quality of the candidates from top schools -> mid schools -> mediocre schools is very observable.

Engineers are not fungible.

It's only observable in right out of college. You're less likely/wouldn't notice if you had two candidates with 10 years experience. Which is why companies go for people fresh out of school. Their naiveté gets them accept lower pay and work longer hours.

It represents kind of mindset. If early on in life(13-14 when grades start to matter)you wanted to excel in education and are willing to go to a top university where you are crushed with workload, it demonstrates a sense of drive and passion. You definitely can have that same drive and passion and go to a very mediocre school, but there are less of you statistically. you may even have more self-discipline since you must go above and beyond you peers, but from a recruiters perspective, when they are looking for top applicants it becomes a statistical game really fast.

I completely agree, the guys going to top universities worked hard in school and got good grades. They were high achieving children. They're good at exams. They were probably also relatively smart, and probably also somewhat privileged.

Now, to what extent that translates to "being good at the job you're trying to fill" - that's the interesting question. It'll generally be relative to the biases of the people doing the interviewing and their personal experiences.

Right, that is why companies like google and Facebook who do a ton of research in hiring play such an emphasis on academic achievement, especially in younger employees.

I think saying that being good at achool doesn’t make you good at your job is something we say to make ourselves better.

You can’t be good at your job if and only if you do well in school, but if you do well in school, especially at tough universities, chances are you will be good at your job.

You can also gain such passion and drive, by not going to school.

Seems right for the wrong reason. Not because of the education, but the types of people who would be very enthusiastic about getting into SpaceX would be a different kind than for Tesla. I did meet a couple of early Tesla folks and they did seem to work insane hours for lower rates due to the company name.

I only know one Space X engineer (who went to UC Irvine), but I from what I know from him they're also paid lower than market rate as well as expected to work >40 hour weeks regularly.

edit: he went to Irvine, not Davis, edited original text.

It is my impression that things have been changing at SpaceX over the past couple of years. No doubt they are demanding to work for, especially if you are in the direct path of launch deadlines, but as the company's grown they also seem to be paying more attention to things like work-life balance.

I wish I was this cynical to ride people hard at a 20% pay cut and in exchange offer them the privilege of making me another billion dollars. It's good to be the king.

I think it's more accurate to say it's >60, easy. Every week. Young and a lot of energy.

In my experience, that's inaccurate. Certainly for the majority of interns, but 50-60 hours is the range I would say is accurate on average. Obviously, there are some weeks with a lot higher, but they're relatively rare.

I don't know about interns, but what about regular engineers?

It seems that 12 hour days are a relative norm, and many times weekend work kicks in as well.

Perhaps it's anecdotal based upon the group that you work in, but one thing for sure is that the salaries are just meh and the hours are rough.

Greater than 40 hours is not long. I mean over 60-70 hours a week.

My understanding is that they value people who are passionate about Tesla and SpaceX products. The logic is that if they truly care about what they're working on, work-life balance and pay can be sacrificed. I know several people that sometimes complain about the long hours at these companies, but they refuse to leave because of their passion.

Sane people are passionate about being able to make enough money to live comfortable for a very long time regardless of them, for example, being fired or company going out of business when Uncle Sam's teat are no longer available to suck on. This has a major side-effect: these people's interest align with the interests of the company as a business.

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