How to Get a Job at Tesla | Engineers at Tesla | Working At Tesla

are you an engineer who dreams of working for a company like Tesla well in this video interview we explore exactly what it takes to achieve that hey one percent nation um Jake Voorhees and you are watching episode 34 of the 1% engineer show where we empower young engineers to rise to the top 1% of their career you already heard it today on the show we have an electrical engineering student from UC Santa Cruz who already has a job at Tesla John Lupo is going to tell us exactly how he achieved that what he's doing in school and how he plans to rise through the ranks and continue with Tesla if you're a young engineer make sure you subscribe because I release videos on Wednesdays and Saturdays and people who comment within 24 hours are eligible for the 1% engineer kit enjoy a 1% nation today's featured guest on the show is John Lupo John is the middle of his electrical engineering career at UC Santa Cruz and another California engineer on the show so hats off to you West Coast killing it right now he right now is working at Ted love we're going to talk all about that today it's one of the reasons why it's really excited to have him on the show and he is involved with a handful of other things outside of an engineering career which we're going to be talking about today so John say hello top 1% nation and maybe fill in a couple of those gaps from the intro and talk about some of the stuff that you do outside of engineering yeah sure so um hello 1% nation I my name is John I'm a third year UCSC electrical engineering major what before I get started thank you guys for you guys are great and thanks for having me again Jake and so basically all my life I've really been passionate about making a difference in people's lives which is why I chose the engineering route I grew up in an engineering family true passions really lie in my and like probably interplanetary travel so engineering like music spacecraft and stuff hence huge Iyanla fan like look you don't even get me started on that guy I will go on and on about him yeah you like my videos Hiro German oh yeah he's he's so inspirational and he's a good boss you know he's always very compassionate anyways just to name a couple things outside of engineering been a competitive swimmer for about ten years of my life so about half my life has been in the pool just grinding about every day I think it's a great outlet for the stress I guess especially through high school and now hobbies like a huge car person love cars I love going to car shows I used to draw him when I was a kid I still do sometimes in a bunt like boy or anything just meeting people these car shows is great I travel a lot such a Europe love France love France and Germany and finally like sports-wise I love basketball I all play with my friends all the time while keep up with NBA is much like and and yeah there's like my three main hobbies outside engineering which especially if you've ever travel to definitely Perry airs yeah what laughs yeah magic it was at the nightlife there is crazy it will be 4:00 a.m. and people it will be like 8 p.m. here we look like lively crazy don't stop right yep I think they're color hobbies pretty synonymous with engineering madam oh yeah a lot of engineers let you out they're curious and then there's a lot of engineering YouTube channels that are like just dedicated to car stuff yeah that's pretty cool okay John cool great I really appreciate all the extra background so it in so the question - so we're really happy that you led with some passionate little tidbits about you and interesting cars and clearly your intellectual engineer you said that it's one of the things that UC Santa Cruz pretty strong about so how did you know along your progressions where you are today how did you know electrical engineering was for you how did you know that you're passionate about that tell 1% nation how how you found that within yourself and choose that and just know that it was the right fit for you yeah so in high school basically I you know I love like I spent a lot of time especially my dad especially if he would just fix things around the house so I got a little of it on how he thought how he thought to fix things and my senior year I picked up my first Arduino board and I toyed with that for a little bit and in my free time whenever I was in you know so doing a school volunteer or like swimming or something like that and I built a couple things like I built um I bought a little apple like a little night light sensor like very basic stuff like in a little in a traffic light you know I just loved it um so and then I came to UCSC believe or not originally a physics major I didn't come any but then I like it's kind of impractical to have a physics BS um because I knew I want to build stuff and that's when I switch to e because I thought about all right I love playing with my Arduino when I was a little when I was in high school so yeah I do believe true passion still live an air of the aerospace field and that's why I want to get my MS eventually nice an AE probably propulsion concentration so I guess any advice to anybody who is kind of trying to search I guess just search within what interests you and try new things you know I never thought I'd pick up Arduino board unless you know I'm just gonna try something new program do something because maybe you'll discover something you love and some fields are for everyone and you have to be think in order to love something you have to be thinking about it when you even when you're not working I mean up there yeah totally I've turned to quite a bit because you people say what about John take so that's it segues right into one thing I hear a lot of people say we're no longer work/life balance towards life integration and you really just got absolute at it well where you're excited about your your career and your job and things that you're working on even when you're not even there so in kind of like bringing what you love into your work so happy that I found that quick oh it's good for you too is that electrical engineering is has such a nice crossover with aerospace right yeah I'm just had Erin Shepard on the show and he's electrical engineer and he had eight on electro engineering background as well and he's getting his master's in that and he wants to be an astronaut he wants to be an aerospace engineer so you guys are probably several tiller fast get you to the chat a little bit more but I am so you missing your how you would where you on and he's my biggest role model in the engineering world and they've been outside of it and just what he's doing a home with Tesla stuff like SpaceX is such a game changer company a couple I think they already track man yeah okay it's good stuff stuff but I'd hear a little bit more how you came to find that passion how you came to finally electrical within kind of know that the gateway into aerospace is your future so besides electrical engineering being strong at UC Santa Cruz maybe you can get a little bit more the some tidbits to 1% nation about what were your considerations when you chose a school maybe it had to do with physics stuff I don't know you can tell us in but how did you choose a school that was the best fit for you right you're absolutely right with the next up it's actually I think we're 30th in the nation for physics and astrophysics which is that was pretty cool going in but honestly I picked I want to say in California tuition is high everywhere else and I didn't want to be hanging low and I won't be doing that I've gotten so grateful for that and I did want to swim in college too intercollegiate Lee and this is the only school in California where I could have gone I could have gone to Santa Barbara I did get in there but it would I would not have been able to swim there so I kind of use that passion tell me I think it worked in the end out and then finally I guess the Silicon Valley proximity is just right over the hill it's like a 30-minute drive a she go in the valley quite frequently very nice place in there and there's a lot of job opportunities so those are the three main points why I chose UCSC so yeah I'm putting a little bit of channel I'm really happy you talked about silicon on silicon wasn't sure how close it was yeah as your friends you want to Davis and my buddy I'm so thrilled he just took a postdoc position at Stanford which is right there in Silicon Valley yeah so I'll over here that one of your goals and aspirations maybe - you know if SpaceX doesn't work out or if you gotta start working with a smaller startup and that space exploration and so it's not a goal here's would you love to do that yeah I actually take the startup culture um gives you I don't know I my thought of being in like you know I respect Boeing I respect Lockheed and NASA but it's just I feel like working there just nine to five forty hours a week is very dead end and it's not something I would want I'm not digging is not enough of a difference um so definitely space exploration it's pointing is a lot of space space startups end up in Los Angeles because that that's the aerospace hub and they're one one feel I do particularly what would love to delve into is the idea of a supersonic electric jet I feel like that's a really good way of like new transportation we have electric cars we have you know like rockets they can't go electric if they think we just wouldn't work yeah like the jet there's a new way to just yeah fast transportation so if it's faith exploration doesn't work out then that will be my next or maybe who knows what other life will take me but I definitely wanted to touch on that yeah it with the advent of 3d printing there are so many small companies are doing space stuff so many companies who are doing high altitude drones so many companies doing small satellites like there are endless opportunities in aerospace right now so you're going to find it you're going to make it work and all of that dream it's going to work out here good stuff done there's a digital bunch of electrical and aerospace and there's a there's a whole bunch of aerospace people on Instagram that when pressed I know they can all learn from this so John we're going to get get to a something that I'm still excited to ask you about ever since you announced a way to this role at Tesla which was what a month ago oh yeah you Junior dude yeah yeah again congrats on that I think God we we talked about this online just quick just really quickly but I would love to hear myself personally because I would just love to wear head Tesla as well yeah well and of course one presentation is going to learn a lot from this a tell us all about how you got connected to this as well and and once you give that initial story about how you ran it in how you're on the inside now I love to hear about how that's going and things like that but firstly you know how is it that you you and manage to get connected to this awesome awesome multinational stage company and here you are yeah so um it was actually a little anticlimactic basically an old teammate of mine who graduated this this past June he he landed a sales position there and from there because Ableton there working me into what I'm doing right now which is basically I'm working with customers who are interested in Tesla energy specifically in the solar division energy vision not with the cars yet and I set them up I basically customized design a plan for them of how a system will be optimized to their home a lot of people are interested in going off the grid a lot of people love love the Tesla tiles the power wall panels so that's what I do on a day-to-day basis right there so so it was one of your old twin teammates yep very cool and you guys stayed in touch and because you got on the inside he was able to get you in right and what I usually interview and then you had killed the interview and all that right yeah one tip I guess for the interview process if someone's already in the company he kind of will know the interview questions already so he'll feel kind of pass and ye gave me like a Google Doc for them I don't know if I should be disclosing this but um okay um yeah I wasn't able to do that to educate your morning boniface so um I guess I didn't advise is like if you have somebody who got you in ask them well they were asked because a lot of times we'll just ask the exact same questions if you're prepared you'll do so much better than if you get a question and you freeze like a deer in the headlights like butchy technical technical questions are tough yeah I interviewed remotely for a drone startup in Silicon Valley two three years ago and they burned me with shackle questions and how great when I saw well yeah you're always in the people business one presentation unless you know someone as a company it's not going to work out now you're just a name on a resume and some pile of resumes and imagine how many resumes companies like Tesla get every day it's not going to work plus I've heard on Glassdoor where they've reported this 80% of positions with companies don't even go on the internet they don't even know public so unless you have that trend on the inside unless you're always garnering is building that network of viewers you're not going to get that dream job you're not going to end up at steadily you're not going to end up at SpaceX so what are some jobs keep in touch with everyone that you know and you just you just every up you have to have somebody on the inside so that's awesome so going to here and just going off of of the Tesla topic because this is so awesome so so proud of you and happy for you Don but can you tell us what may be the potential of what culture is like and how is paint going so far you don't even there for a month you kind of got the vibes can you stand that for a little it's a it's fast paced it's nothing it's nothing that like no one has already told you you can look up it you know it's a SAS case people um people either love it or hate it and it's a high turnover rate of people come and go a lot and I've heard stories my colleagues told me like yeah this guy doesn't work here anymore so because they just towers you know the hours are hard is that I can't imagine engineering when I get there eventually but I heard like sixty sixty week hours sixty hours a week which is like crazy and it's hard work yeah it's not me making a car drive itself or yeah stuff like that that's right your ship you're handling it right like you take it you're putting in the time if you liked it like here yeah yeah definitely yeah good stuff because I can tell you this for sure if you got a role with the startup in Silicon Valley 60 isn't even an acceptable minimum news magic and 180 return videos of Elon himself talking about doing 100 as a baseline right 80 100 yep there's only one hundred and fifty six hours in a week so 100 is crazy but honestly if you're trying to change the world you love what you do you can bring that that work-life integration to your reality sixteen twelve fifteen hour it is it's all good so yeah I'm sorry I didn't announce about a few of the other things when I did your introduction higher greater and have you have some experience working on UX projects right we talk about the swim team about how and if they highlight of yours as an extracurricular think of a few engineers who are giving people it is a bd1 swimming right this is the vision three what I they don't know how my dad and your vision is a lot like they they want you to be all the fort not really it's kind of hard to predict pursue your career interests right what especially if you're on a scholarship because if you don't perform you get yourself are taken away and then some people drop because then they won't pay yeah I don't hey hey you know yeah right so you have a full athletic scholarship or the only not oh yeah okay yeah well yeah because you gives you more time to pursue everything engineering so and as you said you can fulfill the swimming passion so and I'm sure kind of got a good balance here yet to do so time we've talked about you know your agree here for an engineering class just brought it up deeply if although some us projects clearly doing the Ted love all you know working potential some kids they managed to graduate with an engineering at zero experience I'm sure you can imagine that but can you tell us what percentage in how your involvement beyond the swim connection that is already a really good responsiveness how your involvement with an other stuff trying to be a standout one-percent engineer how it has maybe created other connections for you or opportunities that present itself what we're talking about is all the extra stuff that normal people don't do what you have and superstar people do do it and it leads to the next thing in the next day or the next day if you can give us at least one example for yourself right I mean just going back to business day the grain position was just a small source of base of income and a quarter I guess it really be sharpen the attention to detail skills and I guess it's always good to have working experience um for resumes no one likes to see that you were just kind of exploiting your parents money the entire college so I guess having some work even if it's just like you're just sitting down and just grading and just you know just working with a pick teacher ask what's a good like a point distribution it's just simple stuff like that is good so going into the uxie I was responsible we program dislike what people are familiar with slack which is a like the messaging we are droll with the program a box for a consulting group we were a software team and then so the with the ball was supposed to do is to what I wasn't responsible as crew creating an a user interface that like would be the ball would engage people but it would be annoying so I had to kind of work with this and it was front-end JavaScript developing I believe was splendid when we worked with a great team um the reason why I did this is because I had little to no programming experience before so I need to force myself to get a little bit better at this so I did this I threw myself in the deep end force myself to learn and adapt pretty quickly and the result is that the struggles that I thought I can talk about here are you know having to learn something for basically nothing if some is a good points talk about you when you're dating you're viewed by people people love to see when you struggle and how you overcame those struggles I think one percent this was all about got a little bit pushing yourself growth mindset we always want to be an ecosystem where you know everything is easy I can't afford it you know so the struggle is where it is and one of the quick questions are in talks about programming in the Java do you utilize that right now maybe not but with what antenna no not not as much now we don't I don't do any programming yet but all the software they provide me stuff basic it's nothing like too extraordinary but I would imagine that merger of electrical engineering and coding ability and I know electrical engineers take a lot of coding type classes but you having additional programming experience certainly a highlight for geo for sure it's been picking the recognition I'm just trying to diversify myself I read that like I'm more keen to like being kind of like pretty good at multiple categories and being an expert in one like my free time I do some CAD designs just just you know just why not like I'll I'll design a rim for a car something basic like that like just it's fun it gets you experience and I can put it in my resume I think more skills you have the better your time you don't insurance you're young John you're still figuring out your expertise but typically what will happen is on that but on the spectrum they call it the tea and you have that broad base and the tea then over time will happen is you will become an expert in one or two of those niches and that expert that expertise is goes deeper and deeper they have to find that and figure out where that is for you and there's no real way you can find then so you're out into the professional world and you're given the opportunity for that key stems to go deeper deeper deeper so for you right now to have that base and to have touching aspects of lots of expertise while you're still on your roots graduation is totally the right attitude so that's really happy to hear that well I think you don't know what you don't like or sorry you don't know what you like until you know we don't like so being involved with cat and programming and all types of other stuff is a good way to figure out what's right for you we look forward so you're doing that you're a team so you're telling the time right here this is 1% status here today so those are the five main questions I have a little lighting round set up for you so on our way faster to call it the 1% round it's a little bit faster are you ready for the 1% round Joan I am yeah yeah yep okay John so course number one what is one personal habit that contributes to your success persistence yeah yeah never give up never giving up that determination never give up 1% nation giving up is fully Lipper's so John if you can talk about one mistake as a student an engineer you have made all your road to today along your journey that some of these engineers can learn from what would that be um my first two years I wasn't too committed to any engineering organizations you know the one like I did sSAE but for like month or something it wasn't that like I just stopped after that which some of my car guy up kind of disappointed for me here but anyways that was like the biggest thing so I guess get for any freshmen coming into their engineer get involved in immediately persisting with orbs you can join fraternities and stuff like that now but I feel like engineering orbs are more beneficial if you're really looking for a career advancement so you jump up something join something and try to get a leadership position a president even treasurer of that will make you look a little make you stand out in our application okay John I read a lot of books as you can see behind you is kind of a player bookshelf and my favorite book right there and listen find it okay I have it now I told you I'm us oh yeah yeah that okay I bought that book about a year ago and then started reading it and then when Ilan with all over the news about you know Trump's board and everything all the tiny degrees is also having even better on understanding this man is brewed and it is a great book and share you you read it and we love it so not going to allow you to answer that one so besides Ashley Vance's Elon Musk if you could recommend one book to one percent nation what would that be and why so if any of you are in start-up in the whole startup game here to one by Peter Thiel who um yeah I'm pretty sure you read you read it to know it on my list and I know about him is a great book I know yes co-founder of PayPal great guy very smart guy he just talks about how like basically I don't want to spoil it but I'm zero to one is basically how startups form they form you things things that haven't been done before that's that's the most timeless thing about it great read reading you right now but record the way through it and I'm loving it so yeah and so easy that don't know you are musk will also the highest shareholder it paid out when it's sold to eBay or what I think was 1.5 billion dollars I feel how much of it 1.5 billion gods yup insane and he walked away I don't know what to say I think it was 300 he started SolarCity with his two cousins I believe temple and SpaceX like in the same year yep everyone told him he was crazy so yeah I'm able to create a suggestion okay John what is the best advice you have ever received that's about they received was never change who you are for others and stay true to your own values they love these go away yeah I just stay true to yourself so what other people change you again bu 1% nation so what kind of K to yourself to others on your past figure out who you are who you are evolving to be and stay the course don't worry about anything else outside of that yeah and sorry we really I'm sure you could take this in many directions so you get to choose choose the one for you but what's one thing one technology one aspect of engineering and design or something in the techie space that has you pumped up it's going on right now but has you pumped up for the future yeah definitely and number one reusable rocket technology and when I saw that that Falcon 9 land December for the first time I went nuts I thinking about it gives me chills you know this god it was just the thrill of it like I just I cannot imagine seeing that in person like oh that would be the opportunity to life time just to see that thing land in person I'd be great yeah step one number one technology that has merely pumped the footage of the Rockets landing is freaking out of control in like I would love to be that person so here's a little bonus question for you job if you have an opportunity to go to Mars in your lifetime will you go why go to Mars um as long as I know it's safe for going hahaha as long as a good amount of people before me have already gone yeah don't worry on that first spaceship to Mars guys I would not because I would probably not come back quickly probably pretty dangerous yeah so John thank you so much for being on the 1% engineer show today if you can give maybe one piece of clothing wisdom to 1% nation and then also how they can stay in touch with your Tesla journey how they can keep up with you I know you're on Facebook Instagram pretty sure I know you're on Instagram but if you have one piece of clothing guidance and how we can stay in touch with you and your tablet or any let us know about that yeah so um I thought about this for a little bit it was just like I know all our lives are very hard coursework stuff along with like other things in a nitrous kind of life you can't control what happens in your life the other 10% is how you how you how you pretty much deal with it one life is random sometimes so I guess wake up every morning with the purpose and be excited for a goal you're striving for because you're going to have tough times and life's unfair and it's going to knock you down and having a goal kind of gets you up I know it has for me at least that yeah it's by closing advice you want to that's great and how could a one-percenter nation stay in touch with you and maybe some electrical engineers who want to know what you're up to a year to four from now and it's all in the 10 learn out what's up guess what's the best way then it's a follow your journey John thank Facebook message blog be the best way that's a good where I dig the Facebook message I'll put sugar yeah I'll put your your profile information in the youtube description so check that out good job so again John thank you so much for being on the show we're going to negotiate that does that we salute you and we'll check you later John yeah thank you have a great day a great weekend why hey 1% nation I hope you enjoyed that interview with John Lupu if you did consider subscribing because I release videos on Wednesdays and Saturdays for young engineers so you can crush it in your career and become a 1% engineer Cheers [Music] [Music]

Channel: Jake Voorhees

Views: 41,992

Keywords: engineers at tesla, tesla engineering internship, get a job at tesla, how to get a job at tesla, tesla software engineer, tesla mechanical engineer, mechanical engineering at tesla, how to work at tesla, electrical engineering tesla, tesla engineering, how to get an engineering, engineering internships, tesla vehicle engineering, engineering career fair, ucla engineering, tesla engineering explained, 1% engineer, engineering career advice, electrical engineering at ucla

Id: A4X8kUO6Hlg

Length: 30min 35sec (1835 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2017