21 Tesla Data Scientist Interview Questions + Guide in 2025

As a leader in electric car manufacturing, Tesla spearheads many innovations that require top data scientists. Autonomous driving data science and cutting-edge AI/ML at Tesla offer many interesting projects to work on. As a data scientist at Tesla, you’d also be entitled to a very competitive remuneration package.

However, getting hired as a data scientist at Tesla is no walk in the park. To remain at the forefront of innovation, the company tries to hire the most technically gifted candidates. This is why their interview questions can be very challenging.

Interviewing at Tesla is a career-defining moment. To help you prepare for the opportunity, we have compiled 21 Tesla data scientist interview questions. We also highlight candidate requirements, the steps in the interview process, and the role of data scientists at Tesla. Let’s dive in!

Overview

Many teams within Tesla make use of data science. Your work could involve anything from helping to develop autonomous driving features to analyzing supply chain issues. Some of the project areas you could end up working on inside Tesla include:

• Full-Self-Driving (FSD)
• Tesla Bot
• Supercharger Network Analytics
• Vision Language Models (VLMs)
• Manufacturing (Gigafactories)
• Tesla Energy—Solar roof, Powerwall, solar panels, etc.
• Supply Chain
• Sales and Marketing
• Cyber Security

Responsibilities can vary significantly depending on the specific project area and role the company is recruiting for. However, in any of these roles, you can expect to work with huge and complex datasets, turn vague problems into questions that can be answered using data science, develop data analysis pipelines, and build visualizations to communicate insights.

Tesla Data Scientist Candidate Requirements

A data scientist position at Tesla will require candidates to have at least:

• A bachelor’s degree in a relevant field, e.g., computer science, data science, physics, engineering, etc.
• Advanced knowledge of Python and SQL in a data science/analytics capacity
• Prior work experience in data analytics or a related field
• Proficiency in creating data visualizations
• Good understanding of statistics and machine learning

As stated earlier, each position will have additional requirements such as experience working with time-series sensor data, familiarity with deep learning, experience with robotics, etc.

Tesla Data Scientist Salary Expectations

As a data scientist at Tesla, you can expect to earn an average base salary of around $127,000. In an entry-level position, expect to be paid at least $83,000, but seniors command base salaries as high as $177,000. Check out our Tesla data scientist salary page for more details and comparisons.

Tesla doesn’t use a standardized interview process. The steps vary depending on factors such as the team and location and could take anywhere between 2 weeks and 2 months. Most applicants apply through Tesla’s online portal, but a recruiter may also reach out directly. The steps you should anticipate in a Tesla data scientist interview are:

• Screening Call: This early phone call may be with a recruiter or someone from HR. You’ll be expected to answer questions on your resume and talk about how your experience relates to the data scientist role you’re applying for at Tesla.
• Coding Challenge: If you pass the phone screen, you’ll then take a coding challenge. This could involve using Python or SQL. For some past candidates, this was a live round, so be prepared to explain your code to the interviewer as you write it.
• Take-Home Challenge: You could also be given a take-home technical challenge to work on. Past data scientist candidates at Tesla have had as much as 48 hours and as little as 24 hours to complete this challenge.
• On-site Interviews: Tesla’s on-site data scientist interviews may be virtual or in person. You could have as many as five back-to-back interviews with a strong emphasis on core technical skills. You may also be asked to prepare slides and give a presentation. On-site interviews are conducted by Tesla managers and team members.

Many candidates who’ve been up for a Tesla data scientist position have stated that the interview is quite challenging. Here are a few things to keep in mind when applying for this position at Tesla:

• Focus on Technical Questions: Much of the work done at Tesla is cutting-edge, so they put a heavy emphasis on technical skills when hiring. While you should definitely practice answering behavioral questions, you should spend more time preparing for the technical questions.
• Unconventional Role Names: If you do a Google search for Tesla data scientist positions, you’ll probably come up empty. This is because many positions involving data science at Tesla are given unique names, such as data collection operator, staff analytics engineer, AI research engineer, etc. Keep this in mind when searching for a suitable position at this company.

The data scientist interview questions at Tesla single out candidates who have honed their technical skills. You must be prepared to answer questions on probability and statistics, algorithms and coding, and machine learning to stand a chance of succeeding.

Probability Interview Questions

1. What is the probability an animal has one normal and one mutated gene, considering its parents both had a normal and a mutated gene, and its offspring appears normal? (Note that for an animal to appear mutated, it must have two mutated genes.)

This question is designed to test your understanding of conditional probability. In this case, you’ll need to figure out the probability of an event given the events that came before and after it. Check out the fully worked-out solution on Interview Query.

2. Two jobs are started at random every day between 7 pm and midnight. Each job runs for an hour, but if there is any overlap between the programs’ run times, it causes a system failure that costs the company $1000. Write a code to simulate the problem and estimate its annual cost.

To solve this problem, you’ll need to write code that can approximate the probability of the two programs’ run times overlapping. Follow the link to check out two solutions on Interview Query.

3. Using pandas in Python, write a function that can estimate missing temperature data from a time series data frame showing daily temperature readings for different cities.

At a Tesla data scientist interview, this question can be asked to test if you understand how to replace missing data with estimates that have a high probability of being true while limiting the probability of estimates skewing the entire dataset in the wrong direction.

4. Of 100 products, 25 don’t meet the company’s standard. What is the confidence interval?

This question tests your understanding of probability fundamentals. To answer this question, you’ll need to know what kind of probability distribution you’re dealing with, the significance of the confidence interval, and how to calculate it.

Coding and Algorithms Interview Questions

5. You’ve been given an array of integers of length n. Write a function with a complexity of O(n) that returns the missing number in the array.

The ability to write code that can be executed efficiently is expected of a Tesla data scientist. This means you must have the ability to assess the time complexity of the underlying algorithm when writing code. That is what is being tested by this question.

6. Given the starting point of a robot and its end point, write a function that can determine the full path the robot will take, assuming it’s moving through a 4 by 4 matrix. The robot can only move forward or turn to the right, and some elements in the matrix may be blocked off.

You’ll need both coding and problem-solving skills to handle this question. This can also be an optimization problem if the goal is to get the robot to its destination in the fewest number of steps possible. Check out a detailed breakdown of the problem on IQ.

7. Write a function that will return the sum of each digit in a floating point number, assuming the number is given in the form of a string.

This is a simple question that tests your ability to work with strings. Each character in the string will need to be converted to an integer before summation is done.

8. You have been given an NxN array. Write a function to rotate the array clockwise by 90 degrees.

Although this question tests your coding skills, it also tests your knowledge of matrices. You can use an algorithm that moves each element based on how its index would be affected by a 90-degree rotation, or you can exploit your knowledge of transpose matrices to code a simpler solution.

9. You have been given a binary tree made up of unique positive numbers. Given any two nodes as input, write a function to find the value of the nearest node that’s a parent to both.

This question tests your understanding of tree data structures and how to traverse them. At a Tesla data scientist interview, you should demonstrate your expertise by writing code that can deliver a result in as few steps as possible.

10. Why would you use C to develop software for autonomous vehicles?

C is used in many autonomous driving applications because it’s a low-level language. This question tests your knowledge of different languages and how they impact application performance.

Statistics Interview Questions

11. What are z- and t-tests, how are they used, how are they different, and when should you use either?

This question tests your knowledge of statistics fundamentals. Z-tests and t-tests are some of the tools used to ensure that the statistical analysis results are more reliable.

12. How would you interpret the coefficients of logistic regression for Boolean and categorical variables?

As a data scientist at Tesla, you’ll be expected to have in-depth knowledge of different regression models. This question specifically tests your understanding of logistic regression.

13. A study by a new airline offering domestic flights in North America revealed that its boarding times are faster than those of other airlines. Identify the factors that may have biased this result.

In this line of work, it’s important to know when a study has flaws or assumptions have been made that can skew results. To comprehensively answer this question, you’ll need to understand an ambiguous problem, simplify it, and identify potential sources of bias in a study.

14. How would you use statistical analysis to assess the effectiveness of the charging network in a particular region?

This question tests both your statistical knowledge and problem-solving skills. You’ll need to identify the key metrics that can communicate this information and the models and data that can be used to calculate these metrics.

SQL Interview Questions

15. Given a table containing information about users of a ride-sharing service, write a query to return the duration of all rides longer than two hours, sorted in descending order.

The columns in the table include passenger IDs, start and end times for rides, distances covered, and regions.

Working with DATETIME data in SQL can be challenging for some tech professionals. However, this is unavoidable for a data scientist working for a company receiving data from millions of cars every day. Be sure to check out our approach to handling this type of problem in the link.

16. You have a table containing flight data for flights between two cities. Write a query to return the time, in minutes, each plane was in the air on any given day.

Information in the table includes source and destination locations, plane IDs, and start and end times for flights.

This question also tests your skills in working with DATETIME data but is more complex because solving it requires creating multiple common table expressions (CTEs). Additionally, you’ll have to factor in planes that take off before and land after midnight.

17. You’ve heard rumors that a lot of money is being spent on employees who are barely productive at work. To find out if this is true, write a query that returns the sum of the salaries of all employees who have yet to complete any project.

You have an employees table with IDs and salaries and a projects table with employee IDs, project IDs, and start and end times for projects.

For context, you have one table containing employee IDs and their salaries and another with project information including start and finish times. This question tests your ability to use JOINs and aggregate functions in SQL.

18. You have been given a table with more than 100 million rows. Write a query that can randomly sample a row from the table without throttling the database.

The table only contains an ID column and a name column.

Prebuilt functions such as RAND() are not designed to sample from such large tables. To show you have what it takes to be a Tesla data scientist, you’ll need to demonstrate the ability to come up with creative answers for such problems, as seen in IQ’s solution.

Machine Learning Interview Questions

19. What methods can be used in autonomous vehicles to aid in obstacle detection and avoidance?

Obstacle detection and avoidance is a key feature of autonomous vehicles. This question tests your understanding of the machine learning systems that make this feature possible.

20. You just discovered that a machine learning algorithm is underpricing a certain product. What steps would you take to identify the cause of the problem considering the price is set depending on availability, demand, and logistics cost during delivery?

Machine learning algorithms don’t often work the way they are intended to. The underlying cause may be simple or complicated. Follow the link to see a video on how you can identify the root cause of such an issue in machine learning.

System Design Interview Questions

21. How would you design a vehicle telemetry system?

System design questions test your ability to come up with solutions that are resource-efficient and scalable. A typical car has significant resource limitations, and in addition to demonstrating an understanding of different architectures, your solution should showcase performance optimization, load balancing, and cost efficiency.

As a pioneer in the electric car industry and beyond, Tesla sets a high standard when recruiting for tech roles. A typical Tesla data scientist interview will have a strong focus on your ability to handle the technical aspects of the job above all else. Ensuring you’re adequately prepared to answer questions on probability, coding, algorithms, machine learning, and statistics will give you a major advantage in your interview. Having at least a year’s experience in a demanding role will also help.

At Interview Query, we are committed to equipping you with what you need to succeed when you interview for a Tesla data scientist role. We provide access to Tesla interview questions and solutions to help you practice, and our Tesla company interview guide will give you a broad look at various roles within the company and how it recruits for them. Our mock interview feature is also a great option if you want to practice answering questions in a high-pressure interview. If you wish to brush up on your technical skills, be sure to check out our comprehensive list of learning paths.

Recruitment for any role at a company like Tesla is extremely competitive. With our list of Tesla data scientist interview questions, plus other resources, we hope you’ll be prepared when your chance comes.