I have an offer from Tesla and Rivian. Job are the same (engineering), same area (SoCal) both are good teams. Everything is pretty much the same. There is no more room for negotiation. Rivian base is $180k/yr (RSU $140k over 2 years) Tesla base is $150k/yr (RSU or ISO $360k over 4 years) Questions… If I take the Rivian job, would I be able to get into Tesla later? It seems like there are a lot of former Tesla engineers at Rivian, but I don’t notice the opposite. Tesla had me fill out a questionnaire before my first interview asking if I’d had been interviewed or offered a job before. Would I be reducing my chances of future Tesla employment by not taking the job now? My thoughts (Pros) Tesla - would look better on my resume. After 4 years (assuming the stock price stays the same), would be $100k more than Rivian. Rivian - Higher base, less risk. I believe the stock could double ($40 -> $80) pretty easily compared to Tesla ($1000 -> $2000). I could work remotely for up to the first 6 months (it would give me time to sell my house before moving).
I would go to Tesla. Rivian is quite a risk move right now. I turned them down to go into Robotics engineering at Amazon Robotics
You are not wrong, but Riv has pretty big upside potential over the next few years.
hey curious, what was the offer from AMZN and your YoE? OPs offer is $240k at Tesla for 10 YoE. I'm a bit disheartened by how data/SWE make way more at way sooner. Just wondering if AMZN is better for mechies or should I be charting an industry change.
You seem to think Rivian is undervalued, but I would disagree. Rivian sells a negligible amount of vehicles and is worth more than Subaru, Nissan, and Mazda combined. It could go up, but honestly, it could still go down a lot from here. At least Tesla sells enough cars to be stable.
Some teach this kid that just because a stock costs less doesn’t mean it’ll double faster.
It's not that it costs less. Tesla market cap is 1T and Rivian market cap is 32B. If Rivian can one day be half of what Tesla is now, it'll be good growth. Tesla could also go to 2T but that's insane growth.
You’re saying Rivian growing to $0.5B (a 16x growth) is “good” but Tesla growing 2x is “insane”. Ok.
Coming in as a staff engineer?
It’s tempting to believe an early stage company inherently has more growth ahead, but that’s simply not true. There are very few hardware companies that can be successful, 10 years ago when i saw apple’s massive market cap, i would thought the other smartphone start ups must have better upsides, but look where is apple now and where are all the other hot startups? Turning a hardware business with sustainable high profit margin is insanely hard, especially for the companies that are not the first ones to catch a new wave
If op thinks the position in rivian better suits the career goal, then go for it, but don’t assume rivian has better upside just because it is small now
What team at Tesla? I thought Tesla SoCal was studio design
I was going to say rivian but that tsla stock is good. 🥵🥵
Why not stay at Toyota, or go to Ford,GM,VW? If you work in the auto industry you know tesla's not far ahead and will never live up to the hype. I know none of the stalwarts are going to pay well but theres gotta be a way to get into a good role with decent worklife balance. these companies are pouring money into this. Just dont forget what happened to Peloton, as soon as legitimate competition showed up their stock cratered and all new R&D ceased. Rivin could easily see the same thing happen, if Tesla dropped below $500 you'd see a mass exodus.
My base at Toyota is $100k/yr… bonus is only about $8k/yr… 4% pay bumps on average. There is OT, but department dependent on how much you can do. Can’t find the same job at Ford, GM or FCA. Hyundai, Kia and VW have similar jobs, but in SoCal for legacy car company TC rates.
Toyota... are you a swe at Toyota?
Rivian stock is higher risk, your equity could easily go down 75%. Tesla stock is unlikely to get chopped by more than 25% long term.
YOE?
10 years in automotive total… but only 3 YOE for current field