This interview process was frustrating, to say the least. I went through an initial phone screen and two rounds of interviews. The first interview was the better of the two.

Interviewers were late, but not excessively. It was very difficult to hear clearly what they were saying due to the conference room mic. I should have asked for them to speak closer to the mic; I will take fault for that.

Beforehand, I asked the recruiter what kind of interview it would be (algo, coding challenge, SDI), and she said anything on the job posting was fair game. So, I was left with a vague idea as to how I should prep and what it would look like. They were very cold and proceeded to grill me for the duration of the interview. I would answer a question with something along the lines of, "I am not sure, I haven't worked with a technology like that and would have to do more research to give you an answer," and they would continue to ask further questions directly correlating to the technology that I just said I didn't know.

I didn't hear back, so I reached out to the recruiter after a week. She said that they wanted to proceed and schedule another interview. I asked again what the next stage of the interview would look like, and she said it would be similar to the last. The last interview was fundamental, so naturally, I studied fundamental questions.

The second interview was really where things went downhill. First, the interviewer was late, and when he finally joined the meeting, he had his mic and camera off and said he was looking for a conference room. He told me to start telling him about my background, so I did, but was distracted as he was still walking around the office looking for a conference room. He finally got to a conference room and then proceeded to ask me what interview this was. I was confused that the interview process was this disorganized and that he didn't know the stage of the interview process I was in.

He then proceeded to comment on my appearance and its relation to my skill level, stating, "You look like a junior dev." I was absolutely shocked. He was willing to make a comment like this, and it made me question if this was a microaggression toward me due to my gender (female), as I have no indicators of my age on my resume, LinkedIn, or anywhere.

The interview proceeded, and he told me it was going to be a live React coding interview. I was unprepared, as I was expecting a fundamental questions verbal interview. He had no environment set up and asked me to open up CoderPad to create an environment.

Halfway through the interview, the conference room window left the meeting, and I was left alone in the room with his personal window in there, with the camera off and mic off. After I asked if anyone was there, he turned his mic on to tell me that he had been kicked out of the conference room and needed to find a new one, but to just keep going. By the end, I had a good impression of what Lucid's management style looked like and their engineering environment. At this point, I was ready to just try and say thank you for the time and leave, but I was cut off mid-sentence, and he felt the need to tell me he wouldn't be comfortable moving me on to the next stage and said he wouldn't be able to confidently say he would want to hire me.

I said I understood and proceeded again to try and thank him and leave, when he cut me off again to tell me to apply for internship roles.

All in all, I feel as though I dodged a major bullet here. They expect everyone to commute to their office every day and offer no commute stipend or any support. They pay under the competitive salary for the area and try to make up the difference with stocks.

I was really excited about interviewing with Lucid, as I had been a big fan of their vehicles, but seeing the company disorganization and toxic culture left a bad taste in my mouth. I hope they will see the Glassdoor reviews and work to improve their management and company culture.

Fundamental questions React Coding Challenge