Job hunting? Consider taking a peek at Tesla’s job board on their website. Currently, there are 1,600-plus opportunities listed in a wide variety of jobs – radar engineers, service managers, and autopilot software engineers are just a few of the positions available.
It’s hard to say definitively what that actually means, but it’s a good indicator that Tesla and CEO Elon Musk are looking forward to growth in the future. Whether that means prospects or the vision of a transition to electric vehicles en masse is not clear.
Though Tesla’s growth outlook looks positive from this angle, the more conservative will point to the fact that the carmaker is not cash-flow positive at this time. This can be attributed to the rapid operational growth of the company. However, Musk has gone on the record of saying he intends for that to change.
Despite posting losses of $1.88 billion since 2007, Tesla looks to continue to add more personnel as it offers more models. The company is also building the world’s largest battery factory, and is expanding across the world. Tesla, the youngest publicly traded American automaker, is racing itself to grow while trying to turn cash-flow positive.
The headcount at Tesla has ballooned 15 times over since 2010 (the year of its initial public offering), to more than 14,000. Also in this time frame, the carmaker went from selling one model domestically to two models over four continents, as well as founding another business unit, Tesla Energy. This unit provides battery systems for personal and commercial use.
Given the ambitions of the company, this workforce expansion is necessary. It’s likely that in the upcoming year, Tesla will face the battle of balancing funding the growth and proving to the market that it can deliver profitability.
Despite the numerous opportunities available, it’s been reported that approximately 1.5 million applications have been submitted. There’s no lack of interest, perhaps another indicator of how strong Tesla’s growth outlook is perceived.
Image courtesy of Bloomberg.
