Tesla doesn't want you to do crazy things with its cars' Autopilot feature, but it's very serious about making it better.
That's according to Elon Musk, who announced Thursday the company is looking for "hardcore" software engineers for the Autopilot feature, which is "super high priority" for the company. He will be interviewing these people personally, and they will report directly to him, he said.
Interested software engineers do not have to have prior experience with cars, but they will need to send a code sample. Applications should be sent to [email protected].
Musk published the announcement in his usual style: In a series of tweets, in the middle of the night.
Ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve generalized full autonomy. If interested, contact [email protected].— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2015
We are looking for hardcore software engineers. No prior experience with cars required. Please include code sample or link to your work.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2015
Should mention that I will be interviewing people personally and Autopilot reports directly to me. This is a super high priority.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2015
The most interesting tidbit here is Musk's insistence on achieving "generalized full autonomy" -- in other words, a self-driving car. Musk never hid his interest in autonomous vehicles; he even went so far as to predict human-driven cars will be illegal in the future. But if the above tweets weren't just a result of too many lattes, it seems Tesla is in a big hurry to get there.
Tesla rolled out Autopilot as an optional (and costly) upgrade to newer Tesla cars in October. It's a suite of features, including automatic steering, automatic lane changing, traffic-aware cruise control, a side collision warning system and automatic parking.