Tesla

What to Expect

Consider before submitting an application: 

This position is expected to start around Aug/Sep 2025 and continue through the Fall term (approximately December 2025). We ask for a minimum of 12 weeks, full-time and on-site, for most internships. Our internship program is for students who are actively enrolled in an academic program. Recent graduates seeking employment after graduation and not returning to school should apply for full-time positions, not internships.

International Students: If your work authorization is through CPT, please consult your school on your ability to work 40 hours per week before applying. You must be able to work 40 hours per week on-site. Many students will be limited to part-time during the academic year. 

Internship Programs at Tesla

The Internship Recruiting Team is driven by the passion to recognize emerging talent. Our year-round program places the best students in positions that they will grow both technically and personally through their experience working closely with their Manager, Mentor, and team. We are dedicated to providing an experience that allows for the intern to experience life at Tesla by giving them ownership over projects that are critical to their team’s success.

Locations: Palo Alto, CA

The Team

Data is deeply embedded in the product and engineering culture at Tesla. We rely on data – lots of it – to improve autopilot, to optimize hardware designs, to proactively detect faults, and to optimize load on the electrical grid. We collect massive amounts of IoT data, provide storage, access, and high-volume processing capabilities. Our stack is built on top of open-source technologies, including Spark, Trino, Kafka and Kubernetes.

We're a small but fast-growing team which is building and operating the big data platform for the company. We collect massive amounts of IoT data, provide storage, access, and high-volume processing. Our stack is built on top of open-source technologies, including Spark, Kafka, and related.

We're looking for a talented engineering intern to help deliver new and improved big data services and infrastructure. Your work will affect many hundreds of Tesla engineers daily, as well as improving the functionality of our cars, chargers, and batteries worldwide.

What You’ll Do

• Employ and improve industry-leading, scalable, distributed open-source technologies
• Build back-end systems from scratch that are capable of handling trillion+ events daily
• Facilitate operation of highly available distributed systems at scale and across multiple locations
• Facilitate others in deploying, operating, and extending upon your clean, tested code
• Help define a platform that is highly leveraged, multi-tenant, and self-serviced
• Work with data engineers and data scientists to drive efficient solutions from the platform
• Help define the data story and enable data-driven solutions at Tesla, both technically and culturally

What You’ll Bring

• Currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science or a related field with a gradation date between 2025 - 2026
• Proficiency in Java or Python
• Experience with cloud infrastructure such as AWS
• DevOps/SRE abilities a huge plus
• Strong programming fundamentals, particularly in data structures, concurrency, and Java
• Understanding of a complex distributed system, such as Kafka, Spark, HBase or ElasticSearch is a plus
• Previous experience building and optimizing highly available, scalable, distributed back-end services also a plus

Compensation and Benefits

Benefits

As a full-time Tesla Intern, you will be eligible for:

• Aetna PPO and HSA plans > 2 medical plan options with $0 payroll deduction
• Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits
• Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans. Both have an option with a $0 payroll contribution
• Company Paid (Health Savings Account) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High Deductible Medical Plan with HSA
• Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k), Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits
• Company Paid Basic Life, AD&D, and short-term disability insurance
• Employee Assistance Program
• Sick time after 90 days of employment and Paid Holidays
• Back-up childcare and parenting support resources
• Voluntary benefits to include: critical illness, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, theft & legal services, and pet insurance
• Commuter benefits
• Employee discounts and perks program

Expected Compensation

$40.00 - $56.00 + benefits

Pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements dependent on the position offered. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

Tesla is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any factor, including veteran status and disability status, protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.

Tesla is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Please let your recruiter know if you need an accommodation at any point during the interview process.

For quick access to screen reading technology compatible with this site click here to download a free compatible screen reader (free step by step tutorial can be found here). Please contact accommodationrequest@tesla.com for additional information or to request accommodations.

Privacy is a top priority for Tesla. We build it into our products and view it as an essential part of our business. To understand more about the data we collect and process as part of your application, please view our Tesla Talent Privacy Notice .