Pros
Tesla has a fun, challenging and fast-paced environment. I've found everyone I've interacted with to be competent and respectful. Teams are highly collaborative. My immediate manager is very reasonable and communicates expectations well. The technology itself is inspiring - EVs are the future of transportation. Free cereal and coffee.
Cons
Tesla has been experiencing a lot of growing pains with trying to accomplish too much, too fast. Poor processes and infrastructure result in wasted time and quality control issues at pretty much every area of the company, whether software, manufacturing, or customer service. It's a large company, so roles are somewhat fairly narrowly defined. I learned a lot in the first six months, but then found myself wishing I could branch out more after a year. It's not easy to move around between engineering teams/roles. Compensation can be poor (particularly for new hires with limited experience or straight from school). More senior roles within engineering do appear to be better-compensated, at least. Infrastructure is poor for certain aspects of development and validation. Without dedicated teams for maintaining test infrastructure for individual firmware teams, things have fallen apart over the years and are not scalable/sustainable.
