The first Tesla Semi rolled out of Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory today, carrying a load of Tesla($TSLA) batteries to Tesla's Fremont, CA assembly plant where they'll be installed in Tesla Model 3s. Elon Musk's paradigm-breaking electric car company appears to be back on track, after months of shakeups and shakedowns on the Model 3 assembly line made investors nervous and nay-sayers gleeful. After a weird combination of layoffs and a hiring slump in the last months of 2017, Tesla is once more filling positions.
Breaking it down geographically by the top 12 locations, you can see the bulk of the hires are in either Fremont or Sparks:
| Location | Job listings |
| NA-US-CA-Fremont-Factory | 279 |
| NA-US-CA-Palo Alto-Deer Creek-HQ | 193 |
| NA-US-NV-Sparks-Electric Avenue-Gigafactory | 111 |
| NA-US-CA-Fremont-901 Page | 91 |
| APAC-CN-Beijing Huamao-Office | 39 |
| EU-NL-Amsterdam-Zuid-Oost | 36 |
| NA-US-UT-Draper-South Frontrunner Blvd | 32 |
| EU-DE-Prüm | 31 |
| NA-US-CA-San Mateo-Clearview Way | 23 |
| NA-US-CA-Milpitas-South Abbott Avenue | 22 |
| NA-US-CA-Fremont-1055 Page Road | 20 |
| NA-US-NY-Buffalo | 20 |
The question remains why we didn't see a surge in production hiring last fall. Tesla was ramping up output on its flagship, game-changing product. Instead, there were reports of layoffs, leaked rumors of serious trouble on the assembly line, followed by investor phone calls full of explanations and excuses and revised timetables.
It's possible the company is moving beyond that. The jobs are going where they're most needed - a totoal of 428 of today's listings are in Fremont, 111 are in Sparks. And 47 of them are in production, a number that is still down 20 percent from last September's surge, but is an improvement on the December doldrums:
Those 47 produciton jobs include such titles as:
- Production Control Pilot Project Manager
- Production Control Supervisor
- Production Manager - Powertrain Drive Units
- Production Supervisor, Paint Center
- Production Manager, General Assembly
Also listed: an unknown number of Production Associates.
You have to wonder how much of Tesla's problems with the Model 3 are directly attributable to the one-two punch of layoffs and a hiring slump? You can't build a new product and a completely new production process without a team.
Meanwhile, in Palo Alto, Tesla is building toward the future with hires like:
- Software Engineer, Autopilot Build Infrastructure
- Vehicle Dynamics Controls Engineer
- Software Engineer, Autopilot Computer Vision Infrastructure
- Red Team Security Engineer (Penetration Tester)
- Staff Firmware Engineer - Battery Management Systems & Charging teams
- Software Engineer – Tesla Energy Site Reliability
- Music & Multimedia Automation Engineer, Software QA
