Tesla employees say Gigafactory problems worse than known
cnbc.com
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The interviewer was very polite and told me this is probably the most demanding job at Tesla, especially at this time of the company's state when they're ramping up the production lines for Model 3.
I was intrigued and went to second round interview, and it eventually led to an offer. That is where things got interesting. Tesla needs to invest heavily in their Module engineers. The pay package was extremely disappointing and I am not willing to let go of the golden years of my life (late 20's) for this kind of a job unless it is heavily incentivized. I've had similar demanding job offers from oil companies, but at least they offset with a very compelling pay package (15% Alaska bonus, 4 weeks off, presumably amazing yearly bonus).
Edit/ Fun fact: paint was still wet on the Model X’s on stage at the press event. The parts to build them came in ten days before showtime. Groups of five or six were assigned one to build. He was one of them. He said he slept like 8 hours during the press build.
To clarify, I love the ambitious nature of Tesla, SpaceX etc. but I have done 100+ work weeks and it sucks. Controlling your schedule or at least your queue is what I’d consider one of the most important things in life.
What’s mind-boggling to me is that Europeans can’t help but continue to make these smug comments, when your minimums are usually either 4 or 5 weeks, and the average isn’t much more.
Yes, Americans work too much and don’t get enough vacation. But for software developers in particular, the overall comp in America is WAY better than for Europe. I’ll happily trade a week or two off (if I even have to) for double the salary.
The minimums of 4-5 weeks of vacation, plus far more mandatory sick leave than in the US -- usually more paid sick leave than Americans are guaranteed as job-protected, unpaid leave -- is vastly more than American workers get. Not even close.
And then we can talk about paternity/maternity leave and associated support, and piles of other things.
Two week is the status quo, and that’s after you earn it. Silicon Valley is an anomaly.
Regardless, we’re talking about SV, so whether it’s an anomaly is irrelevant.
Source: https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-vacation-time-and-pay-do...
"PTO" or "annual leave" typically is either a combined pool used for both vacation and sick leave purposes, or, when used to compare across employers, compares what is offered as either PTO/annual leave by name, or the sum of separate vacation and sick leave.
So, no, its not the same as vacation.
The main difference is that PTO (or vacation days) accrue whereas sick days don't.
No matter how you cut it, we absolutely suck at time off. And even when companies offer it people don’t take it because the culture discourages it.
He’s right to be smug about it. We need to change the culture here.
It’s also unfair to consider things like vacation time, parental leave, and universal healthcare (the prime topics for smug) without also considering economic growth rates, employment levels, and overall comp, particularly for white collar workers.
The story in America vs the EU isn’t one of their paradise vs our hellscape. It’s one of inequality. Life for the poor or middle class in America sucks compared to Europe. But if you’re lucky enough to be an employed white collar worker in America, you don’t have it much worse, if at all, than the average white collar European. Open to data proving otherwise.
For what it’s worth, I too want more vacation time, better parental leave, and universal healthcare in the US. But they come at a cost, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
America? Fuck yeah?!?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...
Also, most line units have block-leave, meaning you can only take leave in prescribed periods which limits flexibility.
But that means that the average IS higher than what the comment I replied to stated as high (at least in comparison to working for tesla). Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned that I’m European[1], sure, but I was not generalising to all of America, only that the person I replied to seemed to consider 4 weeks a plus and I found that boggling given that its the minimum here (meaning that something that would be considered high would have to be higher still). Yes, yes, I probably should have been clearer, but it sounds like you have gears to grind.
[1] Although, I do think its relevant because up until recently I worked for a US company and everyone in the office here was getting quite a few more holidays than the people in the US office. A friend of mine recently said the same thing: the people in the US office in the company he works for were getting approx. half of the holidays people here were getting.
It’s impossible to have a discussion online about parental leave, vacation time, or universal healthcare without a parade of Europeans rolling through and expressing (mock) horror and shock at the hellscape that Americans have to live in.
I’ve lived in Europe, and hope to again. I LOVE Europe and agree that quality of life is much better in many areas. But it’s not perfect, and the constant drumbeat of condescension about these few topics is neither helpful nor an accurate picture of the total differences between the countries.
Imagine if every time you had a discussion about salary, or employment levels, or whatever, you had 13 Americans dropping by just to say: “wow, I had no idea you have it so bad!!!”
So yeah, gears to grind :)
I’d also happily take a pay cut from what I earn now in exchange for more free time.
Some cities were ridiculously out of wack, like London where the pay cut would be like 30-50%. When you can swing an after tax savings rate of near 30-50% on the west coast, it becomes really, really difficult to make the numbers work out.
But then again this is anecdotal for a specific level. Though when I did a more brief look for levels above me, the difference was even more stark (we got some serious income inequality for upper levels in the US).
When you don't spend 100% of your income on getting by, marginal increases in both pay and living costs favor you, so long as they are remotely balanced.
But it’s not a good trade off. Having a lower cost of living does not give you nearly as many options as simply having more cash. A person with a high salary can always cut his standard of living and go into a high savings mode if they are planning some big money moves.
(What I mean is, vacation time for full time white collar jobs probably isn't the first thing we need to address in our labor laws)
i just think there's a strong expectation/cultural momentum to be working all the time, more than is healthy. you can swim against it, but you're still swimming against it.
...although, under the current government many employers have moved workers to be contractors on "zero hours contracts", so you're uber driver, food delivery guy, amazon packing guy etc have basically none of these rights.
On the other hand, if you are software dev you are either employed and have the 28 days - or you are a contractor, less rights but paid more than the permies.
Some IT contractors line up something before their current one ends, or there will be a gap while you find something.
Not including the 10 days of sick leave as well.
Plus 14 national holidays
The comment I replied to implied that 4 was high, I only said that it boggles my mind that this would be considered high. Where I am, its the legal minimum, so I wouldn’t consider it high, but I also never said[1] that its too few. You made that up.
[1] In the comment you’re replying to. I did say elsewhere that I would happily trade a pay cut for more holidays, but that’s a choice I would personally make. Having said that, with the state of mental health here and in the US (according to stuff that’s been posted to HN over the past year or two) and personal anecdotes with friends, family and coworkers, I do think that most people need to work less.
I find this "Education degree" based pay bias a little bit absurd. Of course, there is the demand/supply thing that should settle the equilibrium in a fluid job market -- but the reality is that non-software engineers that can also write software are underpaid. There is equal or more complexity in dealing with the interface of hardware and software (Robotics) as with any other "pure" software development task. I would love to hear more from the software folks on HN.
I think pay should be based on the specific job role not Engineering degree.
Edit: removed personally identifiable information.
Note that this is where it becomes clear that wealth inequality is important. If a few organisations have outsized amounts of wealth then it pushes up prices for everyone.
The most wildly overpaid Silicon Valley engineers have the purchasing power of entry-level accountants anywhere else in the country.
You'll get a bump though for being able to turn a wrench - it definitely opens doors. What have you been putting yourself on the market as?
On the other hand, here is someone who has completed a degree and gone beyond. Clearly they have the ability to learn new material. Furthermore, they attained a proficiency at least that of the self taught - no degree segment mentioned above.
Now, given a "you can make $150k/year as a software developer" vs "you can make $100k/year as a ME" there's something to be considered. Additionally, if thats instead a "you can make $70k/year as a junior engineer getting the necessary time to become a licensed engineer for the next few years" ... well, there are student loans to be paid off.
If argument is that they need to pay loans, then computer degrees should also be allowed to learn on the job and do mechanical/civil stuff ?
There is a problem on the hiring end of the software market though where I get flooded with resumes from engineers and data scientists and interviewing them for a software job seems to be a complete crapshoot. Literally the best and worst candidates that we get through. We get some folks with serious traditional engineering chops who can't code (as in solve a problem with software) their way out of a paper bag.
The self-taught developer and CS grad pools seem to be far more consistent, in my experience. I get through less of the very worst people and those are easier to filter in this pool.
If the self-taught/bootcamp junior programmer can nail it while you can't and are asking for twice+ as much money, how do I justify hiring you?
The funny thing is that I currently make more than that outside of California (I wish to not disclose my location if that's ok). I am hearing from others that Bay area housing is approximately $2k / bedroom and that's not super nice. This leaves a bad taste for working in the Bay area where competition is insane, cost of living is through the roof, and compensation isn't adequate.
Others are pointing out the thrill of working for Tesla/SpaceX has some value - that is, to work for the next gen American manufacturing. I am a bit more objective and less emotional I guess.
I do have a question: Is expecting $130-140k too much for a Mechanical Engineer running one of the most critical areas in their manufacturing line?
Edit - removed personally identifiable information.
I’m sick of the corporate grind. If people are interested in contacting me for a robotics startup, I could be reached at the email address on my profile.
The general rule of thumb I've seen is as you become more experienced, stock becomes at least half of your compensation, so you're expecting $350k for a moderately experienced engineer? Obviously some people are paid this much in the Bay Area, but I'd hardly consider it normal.
Software engineers are paid well because they produce work that can make a big difference and are in demand.
If Tesla is limited by it's manufacturing line... (insert obvious conclusion)
If you don't have a degree, you're not formally a mechanical engineer. That's probably why they thought they could lowball you.
It sounds like BS but software engineering is pretty much the only field in the US where people get to call themselves engineers without passing a PE exam, which means getting a degree. (There's a PE exam in most states for software engineering but it's still a bit of a joke.)
(agreed)
Tesla should pay - at minimum - market rate for this person's skills, to do otherwise is a failure at the institutional level.
We should be valuing people that perform labor in service of jumpstarting a post-fossil economy higher than those that perform labor in service of the existing, damaging fossil economy. To do otherwise a failure at the societal level.
I had a buddy who worked at Tesla. The first step of the battery manufacture process involves a robot taking a little cell out of the box, discharging it, charging it back up and testing to see if it shows the right voltage. Super easy quality control test. But all that needs to be written to a database. The database was hosted on a vm using a shared raid array of spinning disks. Their battery manufacturer process was literally gated by a slow ass disk drive. My buddy pointed this out. Asked that they just throw an SSD in there (we’re working on it). Followed up, asked if he could just do it himself (no). Followed up a third time asking for the authority to fix the problem (no). Finally quit in disgust because they refused to solve a simple problem so how are they going to solve hard ones?
Changing working things in a critical phase of the core business without reason does not seem like a good idea.
I agree the setup seems bad and should be addressed, but if there are better things to do maybe do those first.
Why not? If you can't find 2% dead wood at your company you're miraculously good at hiring or are not looking very hard. Stack ranking companies tend to use 5-10% as the bottom tier subject to "yank".
I'm not saying it is just performance reviews, because I have no more idea than whomever wrote the article what's really going on inside Tesla, but the idea that it couldn't make sense for a big employer like that to do a small round of firings doesn't hold water.
If nothing else, GE has 300k employees. Your company probably doesn't.
Prior to Mr. Immelt GE was headed by Jack Welch. During his tenure at the top of GE the company created more wealth for its investors than any company ever in the recorded history of U.S. publicly traded companies. GE’s value increased 40-fold (4000%) from 1981 to 2001. He expanded GE into new businesses, often far removed from its industrial manufacturing roots, as market shifts created new opportunities for growing revenues and profits. From what was mostly a diversified manufacturing company Mr. Welch led GE into real estate as those assets increased in value, then media as advertising revenues skyrocketed and finally financial services as deregulation opened the market for the greatest returns in banking history.
Jack Welch was the Steve Jobs of his era. Because he had the foresight to push GE into new markets, create new products and grow the company. Growth that was so substantial it kept GE constantly in the news, and investors thrilled.
That’s why.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2015/04/15/ge-a-tot...
Management went from not being rewarded with significant stock options to owning a third of the company during that period, so "created wealth for investors" is a slippery term.
> From what was mostly a diversified manufacturing company Mr. Welch led GE into real estate as those assets increased in value, then media as advertising revenues skyrocketed and finally financial services as deregulation opened the market for the greatest returns in banking history.
And we all know how well that ended.
Not good enough to be in the top 98% though!
I think the issue here is that we don't have a good way to even assign ranks. It's either a social game of politics, or some sterile metric based system that no doubt prefers short-term gains over long-term investment. Thus there's no eventuality about it, you'll be firing all sorts of good people right from the get-go.
You also get people gaming the system ie at Microsoft deliberately taking some one to a team to let them go.
And I have heard terminally ill people being selected using these systems.
The problem is that no company can accurately identify who the bottom 10% are.
The other problem is that false positives in firing will cost you a lot more then just losing an average/good employee.
The very idea sounds crazy to me.
What I have suggested is the data for ranking is contained within the employees of the company, but that it is not accessible to management.
d: you can't identify low (bottom 10%) performers?
k: I can tell if someone is struggling at one task, but can't rank people on everything they do
d: yes, everyone knows who the low performers are but the can't communicate that to management
k: no, I'm saying I can only rank on one metric. Few people do bad or good in all metrics
d: when did I say one metric?
The point is you didn't say one metric, but k is pointing out that people have a hard time judging their coworkers as a whole, because there's so many varied tasks going on.
Each person in a company know something about the performance of some aspect of each of the colleagues they work with. When taken in aggregate this information provides a very good idea of the ranking of employees by whatever metric you want to choose. The problem is this information is inaccessible to management.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/13/4819750/
Yeah... OK.
the annoying part was the take it or leave it that they felt they received, apparently the first car was worse
The only thing I've read about is them not doing in-warranty repairs and/or recalls on salvage vehicles, but that's normal. They'll apparently recertify a salvage car for $3k-$6k though, if an owner really wants support.
Is that legal?
But nothing's been proven yet and Tesla claims the complaints are "entirely without merit".
I think people are sensing a hell of a lot of weakness, and if Tesla starts running out of money, he could literally find himself and the company bankrupt, especially if banks stop lending money because it looks like a bad credit risk.
This feels like the type of company that could crumble down to single digits in stock value because of some catastrophic set of financial issues.