Tesla prepares to open new office in Silicon Valley to recruit AI talent
Nikkei spotted this marker at the entrance to a large office building along an avenue with a view to a major Silicon Valley landmark. (Photo by Takeshi Shiraishi)
Tesla will open a large office in central Silicon Valley, where the company is conducting a major IT hiring campaign, according to Nikkei News. The new office is said to be designed to help Tesla accelerate the development of self-driving and artificial intelligence technologies.
The move comes after Elon Musk repeatedly recruited top AI engineers on social media, with Tesla believing that a vision and planning approach based on advanced AI, complemented by efficient use of inference hardware, is the only way to achieve fully autonomous driving and other general-purpose solutions.
Tesla is currently hiring ADAS Test Operators in Switzerland, Finland and Denmark, regardless of gender. According to the requirements, ADAS Test Operators are required to identify areas for improvement in software iterations, as well as be responsible for regression testing and testing vehicles on public roads, test tracks and proving grounds.
And Tesla is hiring for a brand new position in Europe - Autopilot Safety Officer, a position where you sit in the driver's seat ready to take over at any time. Judging from the job requirements, this recruitment is mainly to prepare for the launch of FSD Beta in Europe.
At the end of last month, Tesla posted ads on its website for more than 700 positions in Palo Alto. Of these, 423, or 55%, are technology and IT jobs. There are also 74 autonomous driving and robotics positions.
The move suggests that Tesla is working hard to hire AI engineers - after all, artificial intelligence is a fundamental capability essential to developing Tesla's robotics and self-driving technology.
According to Nikkei News, Tesla's hiring campaign seems to have come at the right time, as many large tech companies are laying off employees at this stage, thus exporting a large pool of AI talent to the community.
Nikkei reached out to the real estate company behind the office. A spokesperson said it had received a letter of intent from Tesla, but as of the end of January had yet to reach an agreement with the electric car maker. Tesla reportedly appears to be planning to lease 29,700 square meters of office space.
It's worth noting that the building is home to HP's HPE corporate headquarters until 2019, and Tesla leased part of the building currently located next to the former HPE offices from HP in the fall of 2021, with about 30,000 square meters of office space where Tesla teams are currently developing technologies like Optimus humanoid robots and Dojo.
Tesla is moving its headquarters to Texas in 2021, but is still hiring cutting-edge talent at its former Palo Alto, Calif. headquarters. Musk has said that new products and services using artificial intelligence, including self-driving cars and humanoid robots, are "Tesla with orders of magnitude and potential market capitalization gains.