I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Tesla (Palo Alto, CA) in Nov 2024
Interview
After being contacted by a recruiter and recommended for the position, the alignment process took approximately a month. The interview itself was scheduled quite late in November, considering the role was set to start in January.
This application was unique in that I did not apply directly; instead, I was discovered by the recruiter through the company’s website. As a result, I bypassed the typical three rounds of interviews and proceeded directly to a discussion with an engineer who had extensive experience working on the system. The interview lasted about an hour and was not particularly technical. It primarily focused on a high-level overview of the new plants the team was working on and a breakdown of the role and team structure.
The explanation of the role and its responsibilities took up about 30 minutes. During this time, I shared as many relevant personal experiences as I could. At the time, my experience included constructing state observers and conducting system identification for thermal systems. However, I had not yet had the opportunity to control such a system directly. While my theoretical knowledge was solid, I felt I might have been a bit too inexperienced for the position.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe a time in which you constructed a thermal resistor network model that included nonlinearities, and controlled it. How many nodes were in your network?
I applied online. I interviewed at Tesla (Fremont, CA)
Interview
Started with behavioral why tesla and asking about previous experiences and projects, this was followed up by 2 to 3 technical questions. There were two rounds, the first with an engineer and the second with a manager.
It was a 30 minute Microsoft Teams interview with the hiring manager and someone from the Tesla Energy team. Very easy and took a week and a half to get a response back.