Internship with Tesla - Husein Khambata

Hi!

My name is Husein Khambata, and I'm currently a senior in Electrical Engineering. 

My first real engineering experience was when I joined the electronics team for Purdue electric Racing (PER). PER is a student led club where build a 300Volt car from scratch and then race it in multiple competitions.  working on the electronics team has been an absolute thrill designing electronics boards and working on cutting edge software. It was the first real engineering problem we faced, where what we learned in class was coming into real practical application.

I helped design the HV-LV system using Altium designer along with the pre-charge circuit. I also worked with the wiring harness, as tedious as it was, I got to learn more about how different modules came together. I learned a lot about manufacturing too using CNC, waterjet and 3D printing. I also had the opportunity to design PCBs for the battery module that monitored battery vitals and coded with BMS and the CAAN system to relay this information. This experience, on the whole, has taught me about the design process, and how to successfully build something with a team and communicate with different teams such as battery and powertrain. I acquired the trait to be independent as projects at times were individually run, therefore there isn't anyone to ask if you run into a problem, hence "googling" and researching to fix things became a vital part of what we do.

This electric racing experience was what led me to my first internship in my dream company, Tesla. Wanting to work with electric vehicles and apply my knowledge, working in such a fast-paced thrilling environment was an experience like no other. I was part of ESE (Equipment Sustaining Engineering) for Body-In-white, specializing in Robotics and controls. My team focused on the body shop for model 3. This as technical it was also heavily weighted towards project management, I took on roles of leadership with cross-functional engineering teams along with employees on different levels on the hierarchy, from maintenance to production. This taught me how to be more approachable and execute task efficiently, using the right resources.

Apart from the work the people I met were truly amazing, California has so much to offer. The interns would take weekend trips every week, from exploring San Francisco too hiking half dome in Yosemite it was definitely and experience of a lifetime.