The most terrible interview experience ever. I know there is economic winter now. But everyone should treat the interview seriously, both the interviewees and the interviewers.
It was an "onsite" interview. The detailed schedule was finalized only one week ahead and I was notified that some of the interviewers will be remote. I have 10+ years of experience in the self-driving car field. No one asked me any questions related to my past projects or my past experience. All the questions during the interview were STANDARD textbook interview questions even if lots of my past works or projects have been published as conference papers or patents. If I were the interviewer, I would read the candidate's papers before the interview, if they are closely related.
Two of the interviewers were remote. One of them had the interview in his car (I wish that he was not driving). I can not hear him clearly and he certainly can not hear me clearly, either, especially when I was close to the whiteboard instead of the microphone. He was remote but he still wants me to write equations and solve his math problems on the whiteboard. I wasn't sure if he could see clearly what I wrote. It was an awkward conversation.
The interview schedule has been changed once and once again. Even when I was already in the meeting room in the morning, my interview schedule in the afternoon still got changed at the last minute. Why are they so busy? I was asked to prepare a 30min interview presentation. But I was told that only two interviewers will participate in my interview presentation. One of them was in his car. Basically, there was only one live audience. I don't understand why other interviewers don't bother to listen to my presentation. They told me that it's a critical position and that's why there are so many interview sessions. To be honest, I can not see that.
I was supposed to have two more interview sessions (they have been scheduled) with two more interviewers on the second day. I was messaged by the recruiter at night on my first day. He told me over the phone that the second day's interview sessions have been canceled cause they already made the decision not to move forward. It's to SAVE my time. Did they ever have the interview committee meeting and gather all the feedback from all the interviewers? Or there was a veto process? Or they again don't bother to attend interview sessions with no outcome anyway. I have no idea.
Zoox was founded in 2014, however, its self-driving car technologies don't match its age. They were not open or willing to hear suggestions to help with their progress, either. Even discussion is not allowed. Whenever your questions touch on their progress or challenges that they are facing, they were going to defend it spontaneously with an unquestionable tone. During the interview, I didn't see the desire of the interviewers to treat you as a potential colleague and solve the challenging technical problems of self-driving cars together in the future. It's a manager position of an algorithm team. During the entire interview, we didn't have a single chance to discuss the latest technical progress in the industry, the latest technology trends, the remaining challenges, or the insights into the future of self-driving car technologies. We didn't even discuss any real algorithms or papers.