Sr. Sensor Hardware Engineer, Environmental Control & Vision System

A fog-free windshield, clean cabin air, aclear camera lens at highway speed - these are only possible with the hardware that senses and controls the vehicle's environment. That hardware delivers a comfortable, healthy cabin and keeps the vision system clean for FSD, and the Sensing Hardware Team is looking for the engineer who will own it across millions of vehicles, in climates youcan'talways predict.

This role spans the sensing and driver electronics behind three connected systems - HVAC climate control, cabin air quality, and camera/optical-surface cleaning (including condensation management): the sensors for temperature, humidity, air quality, contamination, ambient light, and solar load, and the electronics that act on them (heaters, fans/blowers, valves, wiper/washer actuation, defog, defrost). You define both outcomes quantitatively, then build the hardware that guarantees them.

On the cabin side, as FSD frees people from the wheel, clean air and stable climate stop being comfort features and become the experience itself. On the vision side, a fogged, iced, or grime-covered lens blinds FSD - clean optics aren't a convenience, they're a safety-critical function.

You'll own a focused set of these subsystems and go deep - end-to-end from requirements through design, validation, supplier accountability, and production launch.

This is a role for an engineer who wants to be the definitive owner of a subsystem - not one contributor among many. You'll take first-of-its-kind hardware from concept to high-volume production at a pace few companies can match, meeting automotive reliability and safety standards on one of the most visible products in the world.

• Own your subsystems end-to-end and be accountable for how they perform in the field, not just at launch
• Define cabin comfort, air quality, optical clarity, and sensor availability as measurable hardware requirements - then own the systems that deliver them at scale
• Challenge inherited architectures from first principles. When the existing approach hits a fundamental limit, make the case and drive the alternative to production
• Make technology, architecture, and integration decisions where precedent is absent, and defend them with data and logical thinking
• Lead schematic design, component selection, PCB layout, and BOM definition for analog front-ends, signal conditioning, and vehicle interface electronics
• Design and validate across full environmental envelopes - thermal swings, humidity, contamination, and EMI
• Build validation plans with measurable pass/fail criteria tied to comfort, air quality, optical performance, and FSD safety outcomes - not just component specs
• Collaborate with autonomy, thermal/cabin, and product design to align hardware with optical-clarity, climate, and integration requirements across the vehicle
• Drive suppliers to performance, reliability, and cost targets, holding partners accountable to their commitments
• Compress prototype-to-production timelines through disciplined iteration and early manufacturing engagement
  

• Sensing architectures for temperature, humidity, air quality, contamination detection, optical-clarity measurement, ambient light, and solar load - and the transducer technologies behind them (e.g. NIR, electrochemical, capacitive, thermal, optical, and MEMS)
• Comprehensive environmental test matrices with measurable pass/fail criteria tied to comfort, air quality, optical performance, and FSD margins
• Driver circuits for actuators - heaters, motors, fans/blowers, valves - including control topologies and thermal management
• Comfortable defining requirements and making risk-based decisions under incomplete information - you identify knowledge gaps, design experiments, and decide without complete specifications
• PCB and EMC design for harsh automotive environments - signal/power integrity, thermal performance, shielding, filtering, and transient suppression to ISO 7637 and ISO 16750-2 (Altium preferred)
• Signal-chain design: preamp, analog filtering, ADC, and DSP integration across varied environments
• Automotive communication interfaces (CAN-FD, LIN, SPI, IC, SENT) and the trade-off judgment to pick among them
• Automotive qualification standards (AEC-Q100) and ISO 26262 functional safety (awareness level)
• High-volume manufacturing experience with direct supplier / CM collaboration, including holding partners accountable
• Drive alignment through clear technical argument and data, not organizational authority, and communicate complex hardware trade-offs to mechanical, thermal, software, and autonomy teams
  

Along with competitive pay, as a full-time Tesla employee, you are eligible for the following benefits at day 1 of hire:

• Medical plans > plan options with $0 payroll deduction
• Family-building, fertility, adoption and surrogacy benefits
• Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plans, both have options with a $0 paycheck contribution
• Company Paid (Health Savings Accounts) HSA Contribution when enrolled in the High-Deductible medical plan with HSA
• Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) with employer match, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, and other financial benefits
• Company paid Basic Life, AD&D
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance (90 day waiting period)
• Employee Assistance Program
• Sick and Vacation time (Flex time for salary positions, Accrued hours for Hourly positions), 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
• Weight Loss and Tobacco Cessation Programs
• Tesla Babies program
• Commuter benefits
• Employee discounts and perks program

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.