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.

The process was extremely inconvenient and unprofessional. Spoke with the hiring manager and he told me he'll be considering me for 2 positions. Was given a written test for both the roles which took more than 4-5 days to finish. Had 3 technical rounds prior to the panel interview, the hiring managers were Late in 2 out of 3 times (25 minute late in a 30 minute interview). The interview had to be rescheduled one time. After all this, finally got a call for a panel interview where I was supposed to give a presentation for 30 minute and then was scheduled to give 6: 45 minute panel interviews for the day. On the day of the interview (literally 5 minutes before my presentation), I was told that 3 of the interviewers couldn't make it and will need to reschedule them for later. Being a working professional, it was an extreme inconvenience and barely any apology was offered for that. After all 6 panel interviews were done, (panelists were late multiple times ), I was completely GHOSTED for 1.5 months. On reaching out to the recruiters multiple times, I was given various excuses about how they were busy. A month after the interview, I was told that out of 6 panel interviews, they had heard back from 3 panelists and the result was positive so far. Was also told that no other candidate was being interviewed and that's a great feedback. Then 2 weeks later I was told via text (yes, not by a professional email, but by text message) by an extremely unprofessional recruiter, who has been IGNORING my messages for 1.5 months, that the position might have been filled internally. Thus, after investing more than 60 hours in the interview process, I was told the position was filled internally and no proper feedback was provided (even after multiple requests). Overall, an EXTREMELY unprofessional way to treat anyone, let alone a professional, qualified candidate. Got an impression that just because they are TESLA, they can treat the candidate in whatever way they want. Really feel burnt after waiting for a feedback for 1.5 months (specially when the panelists seemed pretty happy during the process.) Really hope Tesla's recruiting team reads this.