Applied online through an employee referral. An hour later, the recruiter emailed me to set up a phone screen for the next day. After the phone screen, she set up a phone screen with the hiring manager that same day. The hiring manager set up an in person interview with 5 people for 2 days later. I met with the other 5 people individually before I met with the hiring manager, which was backwards and confusing. The other 5 people interviewed me like I was going to be on their respective teams, rather than having a frame of reference for the actual position I was applying for and how they would interact with it. The hiring manager wasn't clear on what the day to day of the job would be, and wasn't clear in the job description of the expectations, or vision of how the position would evolve or fit into an expanded departmental structure. All interviews were very focused on past experience, not seeing patterns and aptitudes that could contribute in the future. I'm finding that to be true of most people - there aren't many visionaries in this world that can see past the end of their noses.
It was a new position, and Solar City is still basically a startup, so there is a lot of chaos and uncertainty of vision around everything. And many many pain points throughout the company. They're growing quickly, which causes pain. Everyone I interviewed with had been there less than a year - most less than 6 months. Perhaps my interview experience is typical at a startup. It was my first startup interview, so I don't know. There aren't enough layers of management yet to make key decisions about staffing infrastructure, and people seem to be most concerned with getting their individual needs met rather than creating structure to make everyone's lives easier. A lot of Type A self-focused individuals, and spacey creative types work there.
I'm almost positive that I was the first candidate interviewed, which is like being the first figure skater - they never win because everyone changes their mind about what they want/like after they have that first frame of reference. Everyone was fairly pleasant. They very much had their individual agendas that were most important to them. I didn't get a sense of true genuine teamwork there - it felt like people worked with the other teams only because they had to because they themselves couldn't learn everything necessary to do their portion of the business.
The company is working on a noble cause, but it's going to be a few years and require much foresight from upper management along the way before they can run efficiently.
