Apple poaches another Tesla Engineer...

aaelghat said:

... specifically an AutoPilot engineer.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/us-apple-autos-idUSKCN0QQ23420150821

This isn't the first Autopilot engineer Apple has lured away, and maybe one of the reasons it is taking longer than expected for Tesla to roll this out. In general I like Apple products, but I'm resentful of the Tesla brain drain Apple is causing. It's hard to blame the engineers. In February, Elon was reporting that Apple wsa offering his engineers a $250,000 signing bonus and a 60% increase in salary.

Elon Musk reveals how much Apple is offering Tesla employees to jump ship | BGR

Click to expand...

That's a lot of money as sign in bonus and very tempting.

I wonder what Tesla is doing to fix this.

taurusking said:

That's a lot of money as sign in bonus and very tempting.

I wonder what Tesla is doing to fix this.

Click to expand...

Security through obfuscation: anybody vaguely involved with telemetry gets the autopilot title. The truly valuable are paid well, the others encouraged to see what they can find at Apple.

(Just kidding. I've no idea if Tesla is even trying to 'fix this'.)

This is unfortunate for Tesla but on the flip side, they have acquire many Apple employees as well. It's a battle and the best company will be on top, whoever that may be. Looking forward to the roll out of autopilot like everyone else for my Tesla however. Whatever engineers Tesla has left, let them perfect the technology for the roll out.

aaelghat said:

... specifically an AutoPilot engineer.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/us-apple-autos-idUSKCN0QQ23420150821

This isn't the first Autopilot engineer Apple has lured away, and maybe one of the reasons it is taking longer than expected for Tesla to roll this out. In general I like Apple products, but I'm resentful of the Tesla brain drain Apple is causing. It's hard to blame the engineers. In February, Elon was reporting that Apple wsa offering his engineers a $250,000 signing bonus and a 60% increase in salary.

Elon Musk reveals how much Apple is offering Tesla employees to jump ship | BGR

Click to expand...

Dear Apple or Tesla,
I am mzpolo. I have a BE in Naval Architecture and Marine engineering and also an MBA. Resume to follow.....

Something like this can really go either way. People motivated solely by monetary gain aren't necessarily the people you want working for you. That's not to say the Tesla engineer in question (or the ones before) changed employment because of the money factor. It's also possible that some of the Tesla people were let go by Tesla/already contemplating leaving/weren't happy/etc... It's possible that they'd accomplished all they could for Tesla and were ready to move onto a new challenge, or, or, or...

I'd guess that there's plenty of general worldwide interest in Tesla and Apple to satisfy both companies hiring requirements.

When I search Tesla job listings for autopilot engineers, I find two software reqs and 1 mechanical eng req. At least two of those reqs have been open for a bit, if not all three. I won't presume to draw any firm conclusions from that, but it's very possible that Tesla has already backfilled with new engineers (and if you checked LinkedIn, that's true), or switching up the team management as shared earlier by Nigel (Robert Rose from SpaceX) caused a upset in the team.

In any case, it doesn't look like there is currently any huge void (outside of the obvious disruption caused with knowledge transfer).

It's hard to compete for talent with the big dogs - Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. - of Silicon Valley. We've lost many a talented engineer to them over the years from the various companies that I've been at. Money is a big factor; the talk of a mission driving someone for years on end - their prime working years probably - with lot fewer financial rewards, is idealistic to say the least. But, on the same token, there must be many young hotshots recently out of school who are raring to work for Tesla. So, no worries at all. Just another day in SV.

sweet momma... how can you say no to an offer like that?

aaelghat said:

... specifically an AutoPilot engineer.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/21/us-apple-autos-idUSKCN0QQ23420150821

This isn't the first Autopilot engineer Apple has lured away, and maybe one of the reasons it is taking longer than expected for Tesla to roll this out. In general I like Apple products, but I'm resentful of the Tesla brain drain Apple is causing. It's hard to blame the engineers. In February, Elon was reporting that Apple wsa offering his engineers a $250,000 signing bonus and a 60% increase in salary.

Elon Musk reveals how much Apple is offering Tesla employees to jump ship | BGR

Click to expand...