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Comment by fermienrico | Hacker News Reader

I recently interviewed for Tesla's module department. Module engineering is essentially the gear between engineering and manufacturing. They're the heavy lifters. They're the front line grunts. They're the ones accountable for everything - LVM to HVM feasibility, process development, metrology, selection of suppliers, qualifying the manufacturing cell, process control and sustaining(operations, efficiency, continuous improvement, training etc.) and troubleshooting lines down situations.

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).

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A buddy from childhood took a similar role there, albeit six years ago. He, now 31 is grinded down and wanting out. This of course stems from ~16 hr. workdays for the last couple years. That works perfectly against your dating and health. He did receive options and built a mini fortune but still.. his plan is to leave soon, relocate to a small mountain town, buy a fixer upper and essentially defrag himself.

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.

The culture wasn't really any different at SpaceX from what I can tell. I can tag a few friends to elaborate further, as I'm only operating on hear-say.

It boggles my European mind that 4 weeks of holidays is considered a lot...

How many weeks off are you guys given? 4 weeks sounds like quite a lot (it's a whole month!)

It’s 28 days in the UK. Those weeks include the weekends!

They include bank holidays (various fridays off), but the rest of it is just time you would've worked anyway, not time you would've had off.

Righ - I mean it’s 4 full weeks of 7 days, so 28 in total, rather than 4 working weeks of 5 apiece, totalling 20.

4 weeks of annual leave is the minimum here in Australia.

Not including the 10 days of sick leave as well.

4 weeks. plus 11 public holidays. plus sick leave.

Australian here, 4 weeks is the legal minimum. At my work place it starts out at 4 weeks and goes up to 6 weeks after 4 years of full time employment.

ugh, america really needs to copy this

why.. If you want 4 weeks find a company that offers it. Many of them do. My company does and I would prefer they just pay me.

Have you asked them if they can just pay it out? It might mess with their budgeting slightly, but they'd be paying the same per hour worked so likely not be a big deal.

it's more i wish we had a culture of encouraging people to take more time off, where it was normal/expected. (actually, i think the ideal way to work for me might be something like "insane hours for 3 months, no work for 3 months". or maybe every two weeks. or something.)

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.

But only for full time jobs right, screw the tens of millions of people that work hourly and are managed to be legally part time.

(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)

very reasonable

5 weeks is the legal minimum in France.

Does that count national holidays as well? I get three weeks of paid vacation, but I also 10 national holidays (two for Thanksgiving, two for Christmas, 4th of July, etc..).

It doesn't in Australia. You get 4 weeks vacation time + ~10 public holidays a year + sick leave if needed.

It doesn't count in France neither.

In Spain the minimum is 30 natural days or 22 work days.

Plus 14 national holidays

UK is 28 days paid leave (includes public holidays).

...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.

It boggles MY European mind that you consider 4 weeks too few.

Where did I state that in my comment?

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.

It’s not really considered a lot for many corporations in America. Not to mention government workers, who often get even more. All military personnel get 30 days (6 weeks), for example.

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.

There are very few companies that give four weeks paid vacation. Can’t be more than 10%.

Two week is the status quo, and that’s after you earn it. Silicon Valley is an anomaly.

2 weeks + 10ish federal holidays is pretty standard for professional white collar office jobs. Works out to about 4 work weeks.

Plus a lot of offices are closed over Christmas to New Years. Not most, but many.

VS 4 weeks plus holidays in many European counties.

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.

Yes, and smugness from Europeans is the way to do that.

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.

“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.”

America? Fuck yeah?!?!

Maybe you meant that with an air of condescension, but anecdotally I can vouch he’s right. I have family in Europe with white collar jobs and they really are no better off than an equivalent white collar American worker despite what people seem to think.

I'm not smug, I think the workers in the US get a shitty deal. It's a major reason I wouldn't want to work there. (The same reason I wouldn't work in the games industry in the UK).

That’s a common misconception. Many workers in the US get screwed. But definitely not all. Software devs in the US are almost unquestionably better off when you take total comp into account.

Yeah but y'all get paid less

+ 2 weeks sick leave + x hours vacation/year of employment

The minimum in the EU is 4 weeks, with many countries having 5 weeks. On top of that most countries have ~10 paid public holidays. So the real span is 30-35 days. If you work a government job or get older it is usually an additional 5 days. So at least in northern Europe people usually take four continuous weeks in the summer, one week at Christmas, one week for winter activities and maybe two additional long weekends. Sick leave is separate and not earned like vacation days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

In Germany a lot of people get 30 days plus(!) more public holidays than the US so it's probably closer to double.

Actually, average salary worker with one year experience in America averages 11 days. With five years experience, 15 days. So it seems unlikely that only 10% give 20 days. Almost 20% of the US workforce is employed by Federal, state, and local governments, which tend to give a bit more vacation than industry, I believe.

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...

That’s PTO, which isn’t vacation.

What's the difference? They're paying you for time you're not working, and if you quit, they have to pay you out the accumulated PTO.

> What's the difference?

"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.

I think it's a matter of semantics. My current employer refers to it as PTO (as in "schedule your PTO and clear it with your manager") but we still have extra sick days.

The main difference is that PTO (or vacation days) accrue whereas sick days don't.

Usually that combines vacation, sick and personal time, at s net loss to the employee.

From what I have seen a lot of companies in the US give 10 days, 15 is very and 20 or more is pretty rare. Maybe after a few years at the company.

> when your minimums are usually either 4 or 5 weeks, and the average isn’t much higher

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.

I definitely have gears to grind.

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 :)

> 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.

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.

Given the demographics of the average tech worker - few of those benefits are things they will take advantage of. Cash is far more preferable for young people without children and major illnesses.

Good point. I wish there were more companies offering alternatives in US. Some people maybe like having more time off, or working from home is more valuable than say a higher compensation package. At the same time can't really put those extra weeks of vacation into a college fund for a kid for example, so a better paying job works better for others.

The military leave system doesn't discount weekends. So 30 days is closer to 4 weeks. You also can't chain together a weekend at the start or end of your leave. You must use leave for the weekend.

Also, most line units have block-leave, meaning you can only take leave in prescribed periods which limits flexibility.

It’s more complicated than I made it out, but not quite as you say. You can chain leave with weekends if you’re in the area, for example.

It's the triple salary normally. And in the US on Fridays rarely somebody is in, >70% do "work" from home.

To say more then 70% of tech workers do not work on friday is probably incorrect. Your experiences differ very much from mine, and places like the Gigafactory don't have this perk.

To be fair, a lot of tech companies these days offer unlimited PTO. Then again, taking more than 6~7 weeks is still somewhat taboo.

Unlimited is more of a code word for none.

I talked to start up with unlimited PTO and told them I will for sure take at least 6 weeks. That was pretty much the end of discussion. Unlimited PTO mainly means that they don't have to pay out unused vacation when you leave.

It boggles my American mind that you are willing to work for half of what I make in trade for a couple more weeks vacation time. I'm sure we could both find more snotty lines to throw at each other if we try, but what's the point?

I make less than a SV salary, but my cost of living is also substantially lower. It works out fairly close last time I checked, assuming your salary is approximately the SV average for software engineering jobs.

I’d also happily take a pay cut from what I earn now in exchange for more free time.

Quit?

Because earning nothing is the same as earning less?

People (especially Europeans) always say something along these lines, that they earn less but they also have a lower cost of living so it’s ok.

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.

Last time I considered moving to Europe and ran the numbers, it didn't come out "fairly close" in any major city, even Oslo and Zurich. Zurich was closest though.

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).

"even" Oslo and Zurich? :-) you picked two of the most expensive cities in Europe if not the world!

Exactly. The fact that Zurich came closest to making the math work out should tell you something....

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.

Good on you, break a leg. No wait, dont, you might go bankrupt ;)

My company has to force me to take the 4 weeks they give me, if it was allowed I would simply case it out for more money..

My European mind thinks 4 weeks are a lot. We have 3 weeks by law here. So the 4 weeks is not a universal thing in EU.

I wonder at what point people will realize that Musk is a shyster who uses his media profile to underpay and overwork his employees. Can you imagine working for someone who engages in media spectacles as a way to induce death marches? "I told every media outlet that we're going to have fully autonomous cars next year, so you better deliver!"

So long as people are willing to do that work for that pay, he will. Nobody has to.

Tesla isn’t know to pay particularly well. Unfortunately, on average, non-software engineers, esp in the Bay Area, are not paid comparably very well.

That's pretty unusual. Tesla is cool but nearly as glamorous as spacex.

If that is generally true, then Tesla is squandering a golden opportunity. If they have the cachet to attract top-tier talent, they should take it.

Indeed, I certainly noticed this disparity. My background is in Engineering (Robotics) and I am very capable of writing full fledged software - from FreeRTOS/ARM Cortex apps for embedded robotics to your typical engineering scripting (Matlab, Python). I've worked on a few major ROS projects and have an excellent grasp of C/C++.

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.

I wonder why people get a masters in mechanical engineering or other field and code webapps or services just because they get a good job offer ? A software / compute engineer would never be able to get a mechanical or civil engineering job without appropriate degrees or certs in the field.

Consider the "self taught - no college degree" realm of the software industry. Its rather large. Clearly, no degree is required.

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.

It certainly makes sense, and if someone has the programming skills, I suggest that they do it.

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.

Something to consider about many scientific programming domains - they don't do much in the way of conditionals. Glance at the code for FFT - https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Fast_Fourier_transform (especially FORTRAN for the engineer and MATLAB for the data scientist). This is the domain that many work in. Throw a problem at people who haven't gone outside the implementation of mathematical formulas that requires using conditionals as part of the design and there may be a bit more difficulty. This could account for the "worst candidates" that you've experienced.

They're the ones applying for experienced full stack developer positions...also we're not doing gotcha-style whiteboarding. It's literally 'take some basic thing and break down how it works' -- we don't even require it to be something in code. Some guy came in and gave us a data model for a flush toilet and nailed it.

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?

I am fine with people having no degree and learning computer programming , but do not understand why people get masters in mechanical or electrical engineering and then enter programming web apps..if its all about money why do they waste the mechanical/civil engineering seat at the university ?

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 ?

Another (mostly ex) Robotics guy here - I have a BSEE and a MSCS. If possible, I'd focus more on the coding side of your capabilities versus the mechanical side - there's just far more upside. People tend to pigeonhole MEs way more than CS (and pay them less).

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?

I don't think this has anything to do with degree vs no degree. I see software engineers without degrees being paid just as well. I think it's just an incredible demand for software devs from companies with ridoculous amounts of money pushing up salaries.

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.

Ah yes, ridiculous salaries enabling ridiculous extravagances like getting your own tiny apartment before 40.

The most wildly overpaid Silicon Valley engineers have the purchasing power of entry-level accountants anywhere else in the country.

Tesla is known to underpay regardless of what your background is. There are many companies that will pay you based on your demonstrated skills rather than degree. Most will mention a degree preference but if you can code well enough then you have a good chance.

I am an “Ocean Engineer” by degree but I was strictly a robotics and embedded systems guy in college. I have been a software engineer since graduation though and now I just market myself as a software engineer and get plenty of job offers. No one cares what your degree is as long you know how to code at a professional level.

As an additional piece of anecdata, I was also thoroughly underwhelmed by my offer (software engineer) at Tesla; they either maliciously or incompetently tried to get me to take an offer at new grad rates, and when I laughed the first offer away (a 30% pay cut to move into the heart of silicon valley), the return offer was just strictly worse than all the other offers I got. Negotiation led to a promised increase to match, but then the actual letter was lower than the negotiated amount. Was thoroughly underwhelmed at the entire process.

There's a lot of unnecessarily personally identifiable information about yourself in this thread. Although I appreciate your honesty and what you say is really interesting, for your benefit I think you should delete the posts with personally identifiable information before the 2 hour limit on HackerNews prevents you from doing it.

https://xkcd.com/137/

^^^^^^^^

Can you share any examples of what type of data they shared that is going to cause problems? Seems like a very non-revealing post to me.

Thank you, I will add some ambiguity.

How much under what you were expecting, exactly? 10% under? 50%?

It is hard to say the exact percent because of my unfamiliarity with the cost of living; but I was expecting about 30-40% higher...perhaps even more. I interviewed with several engineers and really got to understand (and appreciate) the kind of work they do.

Why not share the numbers?

Apologies, I will be very transparent: Offer was about $100-110k in the Bay Area + other perks (bonus/stock). I have 4-7 years of experience. This offer was before negotiation (which I didn't end up doing as I thought it was a fruitless endeavor). If I did negotiate, I always negotiate the base salary - that is a guaranteed pay. Bonus/Stock could be slashed, altered and neutered in future.

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.

In the Bay Area I'd expect a role like that to be in the neighborhood of at least $175k + RSUs/options/bonus.

I think I could have negotiated up to $120 if I was lucky.

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.

We're hiring. We're a chip company, not exactly robotics, but your role would be embedded systems on a board. I couldn't find your email, so if this sounds interesting, email me.

There’s no email in your profile, just FYI

Based on what, exactly? That seems high, especially for mechanical engineers (who don't make as much as software engineers).

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.

At my company "senior" engineers can expect to start at around $160k/yr plus RSUs (worth about 10%-20% of base per year at current market rates) and an 8%-12% bonus target. Leads start at around $190k/yr.

I'd argue that for Tesla, at least right now, ME's are what software engineers are to other companies.

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)

No way man, if you would have taken that low offer for that job you would have been scammed.

Wow $105k and forced to relocate to the Bay is insultingly low. I’d expect at least a lateral by COLA to my current como if I relocated, regardless of where but especially to a high cost area like the Bay.

How much stock were they offering? That can often be a big portion of compensation at a publicly-traded tech company.

No, it was not too much and you were right to say no.

> 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?

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.)

Wow, oil company offers vs Tesla... I think you should choose Tesla and burn some of those golden years for the future of American manufacturing rather than scooping out more dead dinosaur goop.

Pay them the difference then.

To be clear you're saying postmeta should pony up the difference right?

(agreed)

Why are you blaming the individual for a institutional and societal failure?

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.

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