employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

SolarCity

Acquired by Tesla

Is this your company?

From Bad To Worse - PV Designer SolarCity Employee Review

1.0
Sep 12, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Teammates that are friends for life. Casual work environment, you can wear jeans to work. Ability to make your own schedule. Work from home whenever you want. Good job for a recent grad that is looking for experience.

Cons

1. Pay is miserable. There are people that literally qualify for food stamps while working full time for SolarCity. When you're hired they say you can make up to 100K a year with their bonus structure but that is a complete lie. There is a "clawback" meaning they take money from your bonus every time one of your previous job is cancelled. Also, bonus is taxed at a different rate (40%). You'll end up making your salary $40K plus some extra money that doesn't amount to anything significant. They don't even match your 401k. 2. Lack of vision/communication. Management will say they care about the customer and getting them the best designs available but then they will push you to complete 5 designs a day. Inconsistencies on what is said and what is done are seen everyday. Enormous disconnect among different departments create a toxic environment and have employees playing the blame game constantly. 3. Micromanagement/metrics. SolarCity tends to promote young high performers, regardless of their capacity to manage. This ends up with a management style that overly focuses on metrics, resulting in a tense work environment. You will literally be asked what you did every hour of every day, and questioned when you don't meet their unrealistic expectations. You'll find yourself working off the clock constantly to meet their fantastic demands. 4. Work environment. Truth is, nobody likes working for SolarCity anymore. The constant lay off threat and change of focus is burning out the best employees that are either leaving or just doing whatever is enough to get by, without going that extra mile. I haven't seen anyone that truly enjoys working for SolarCity for MONTHS. 5. Zero opportunity for growth. When I was hired, SolarCity was known for it's fast growth and opportunity to be promoted fast. This is completely GONE. There are no opportunities for promotion or to expand your skills/knowledge to move up. They don't even give you a yearly raise or performance review. 6. Work/life balance. Rotating schedule will have you working Saturdays for 4 weeks, every other month. They would have us working Sundays if they could. Management does not care about work/life balance. They will look at you weird for not wanting to work Friday nights since it's "the best time to work". You will be forced to split your schedule during slow times to meet the quota, resulting in you working on and off for 16 hours.

Explore other reviews about SolarCity

5.0
Oct 21, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good pay and no supervision working at the different Home Depots

Cons

Having to make numbers and sales

4.0
Mar 22, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Just to quantify my review a bit, I am within the top 10% of inside sales reps within our 12,000 person company. It is a great place to work and people doing well ARE able to make good money here. The executive team ALWAYS has a platform for reps to help make SolarCity a better place every quarter. They involve the top 20 reps each quarter in various ways to help their peers through an interactive group called Team Elite. Executives, VP's, Directors, and Managers are always willing to help and go to bat when there are issues with things that need to be fixed. The direction of the company is consistent and although the company is large, decision makers work as hard as possible to steer the big ship quickly when necessary.

Cons

Knee jerk reactions with decision making at a director level create issues from time to time. Culture has had its ups and downs due to HUGE growth last year and subsequent high attrition rates.

37
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All