Ashok Kumar Elluswamy is a software engineer of Indian origin. He has been associated with Tesla for over eight years (until 2021). Ashok was the first person hired for the Autopilot team of the US-based electric vehicle energy company, Tesla.
Wiki/Biography
Ashok attended the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), Chennai, to pursue a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communication (2005-2009). He also holds a master’s degree in Robotic Systems Development from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2012-2013).
Physical appearance
Height (approx): 5′ 7″
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Black
Family
Parents & Siblings
Not much is known about his parents & siblings.
Wife & Children
Ashok is married and has a daughter.
Ashok Elluswamy with his wife and daughter
Ashok Elluswamy with his daughter
Career
Ashok started his career in 2010 as a Software Engineer at WABCO Vehicle Control Systems (an American provider of electronic braking, stability, suspension and transmission automation systems for heavy-duty commercial vehicles) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. At WABCO, he worked on brake actuator modules to create real-time performance assurance for actuators. Ashok also works on the development and validation of onboard and offboard diagnostic software for vehicle Electronic Control Units. He worked there until 2012 and then joined the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory, Belmont, California, as a Research Intern.
Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory, Belmont
In 2014, Elluswamy joined the US-based electric vehicle energy company ‘Tesla’ as a software engineer for its Autopilot division. In June 2016, he was promoted to the position of Senior Software Engineer in the company. After that, he was promoted to Senior Staff Software Engineer. In 2019, Ashok was appointed Director of Tesla’s Autopilot division. As Director of Autopilot, Ashok oversaw the autonomous software team and the creation of a large-scale automated ground truth pipeline to train neural networks with large amounts of diverse and high-quality data. Elluswamy also oversees the development of an accurate and detailed geometric and semantic understanding of the world using the best of both machine-learned and engineering models.
Tesla
Facts/Trivia
- Ashok is fluent in four languages- Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu.
- John Dolan, Elluswamy’s teacher at Carnegie Mellon University, while praising Ashok on his LinkedIn account wrote,
Ashok was one of my best students during 2012-13 in the Robotic Systems Development Project Masters Course at Carnegie Mellon University. He showed excellent initiative in learning various topics useful for his explosive ordnance disposal robot project, especially stereo vision, motion planning and various software packages required for implementation. Ashok is a constant learner and has high energy and motivation.”
- In 2021, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, tweeted that Ashok was the first employee hired for his electric vehicle company’s Autopilot team. He said,
I tweeted that Tesla will launch an autopilot team. Through that tweet, Ashok was the first to be selected in the autopilot team.”
He further said,
Ashok is actually the head of Autopilot engineering.”
- As of 2021, he resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
Categories: Biography
Source: SCHOOL TRANG DAI
