My main professional experience during university came from my two engineering internships with Tesla. I worked at the Lathrop, CA factory with amazing people. Roughly 5-6 engineers were responsible for maintaining and upgrading the equipment to reduce takt time, increase efficiency, and importantly increase safety for the operators.

Long hours and strict deadlines were the status quo, which was very challenging and equally rewarding. I was given several design/manufacturing projects, but my main roles were simulating machine performance/cycle times in MATLAB/Excel, designing support equipment for existing machines/cells, and developing solutions to ease the transition to automation or upgraded equipment. Working at Tesla required self-discipline, great time management skills to coordinate simultaneous projects, and the ability to remain level-headed in a fast-paced, quickly changing environment. Additionally, it was critical to understand how to pivot quickly between ideas and concepts to ensure the production was not delayed.