Want to Work for Tesla? Elon Musk Turns to Twitter to Recruit Engineers
Ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve generalized full autonomy. If interested, contact autopilot@teslamotors.com.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2015
We are looking for hardcore software engineers. No prior experience with cars required. Please include code sample or link to your work.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2015
Should mention that I will be interviewing people personally and Autopilot reports directly to me. This is a super high priority.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2015
To apply Musk simply says to email the company and include a link to a person's example work. It's important to note that Musk stated that the company is looking for software engineers and experience with automobiles is not required. After all, vehicles are increasing becoming more software than hardware.
This division of Tesla is responsible for the company's so-called Autopilot system, which is the system that turns its Model S sedan into a quasi-autonomous vehicle. Autopilot doesn't take complete control of the car but does allow the vehicle to navigate highway traffic and road hazards unlike Google's self-driving cars that are completely autonomous.
A Tesla rep told TechCrunch following the Autopilot's launch that this may have been due to the lighting conditions at the time; if the car's AI isn't 100% confident that it's safe to change lanes, it just won't. Better to have a driver take over than to autosteer into something it somehow missed, right?
Elon Musk says he sees full automation coming within about 3 years; Autopilot is just a big first step. But it might be here sooner than that. Tesla is clearly ready to ramp up development.
