Applied online in December and heard back in late January before beginning a series of three interviews in early February. The first interview was a phone screening (I assume to make sure I don't sound like a crazy person). The second interview was a video interview via Teams. I was asked some general interview questions regarding my background and was given a chance to ask a few questions. Nothing too crazy. After this interview, I was invited to come (all expenses paid/reimbursed) to the Sierra Space facility where this job would be located. Strangely, when I got to their business park building I didn't see any direction signs for the Sierra Space entrance (or maybe Google Maps just led me pre-emptively astray), which made getting there on time (i.e., 15 minutes early, as requested) slightly nervy.
Speaking of time, my meeting had been scheduled for 8:00 AM Mountain Time, even though this meeting was taking place in the east coast time zone. Despite this, I decided to trust the schedule, although I soon found that my local interviewers actually were expecting me at 8:00 EST. I don't know if this misunderstanding had any bearing on the interview outcome, but I've learned a lesson here about putting in a little extra work to make sure the details are correct!
For this third job interview, I was first given a tour of the facility (awesome!) and then sat down in their conference room to hear more details about the job opportunity. They asked similar questions as in the second interview and I felt pretty good about my chances, given that I had (somehow) made it that far. Also, a third employee had joined the interview at some point before leaving shortly after. Everything was pretty casual. That said, the interview was scheduled for four hours and I left after an hour and a half. But, I honestly don't know what more could have been said or done. I did notice that someone else had filled out a line on Sierra's sign-in/out sheet that they had been there the day before for four hours to see my same contact, which was mildly unnerving.
After not hearing back for more than a week, I assumed I was not the first choice candidate. A boilerplate rejection email sent in the early morning then confirmed my suspicion. What's weird is that it looked like something you get from not getting past the initial online submission stage. I then emailed two interviewers asking for constructive feedback, but received another boilerplate email with a subject line reading "Product Assurance Manager I" that read "there was a lot of competition" and "another candidate was selected" which I found to be a bit disrespectful. First of all, this wasn't the position I applied to. Secondly, did Sierra Space really invite "a lot of" others to the same interview stage I was at? Thirdly, I still received no constructive feedback! I have multiple theories of went wrong, although perhaps there were forces beyond my control, e.g. a candidate with higher quality experience , who was willing to work for less, or whom they already had in mind for the role.
One thing was that they asked me about my experience working with design engineers, of which I have not had any appreciable experience. But, I was upfront about this gap of specialized experience in my cover letter and in my second interview-and I feel this could have been gleaned from my resume-but I still felt some energy go out of the room. My interviewers seemed like nice people to work with, but have mercurially left me scratching my head. I suppose they have no obligation to offer feedback, but after being invited over there and using my own personal time off, I am left with a sour taste and feel that the process ended with a distinct lack of professionalism/common courtesy.
