Zoox Senior Software Engineer, Perception interview questions

The interview process included a phone call with the recruiter, coding/OOP, then 5 onsite interviews, and a short chat with the director. The interviewers were 5-15 min late to the zoom call. The fun part started after the interviews, when the recruiter reached out to say that she is working on an offer. She explained the compensation structure, salary, stocks, relocation, welcome bonus, etc. She asked me to do my research about my overall compensation expectations, and said that she will get back to me in the next few days. At this point she had already spoken with one of my references. In the following two weeks she continued to talk to 2 more of my references (all of my references got back to me and mentioned that their call with the recruiter - mostly about soft skills - went very well). During this time, I din't hear anything from the recruiter about compensation as she had promised, but she once wrote to me in an email and I quote: "The open role is for you!" At the end I was rejected over a phone call. The recruiter said that interviewers including the director had positive feedback and wanted to hire me and that she submitted all the documents to the C-levels, but the C-levels are "being picky" and want someone with "more AV experience." For context, I have 8yrs of AV experience. Furthermore, experience is usually the first thing you notice on someone's CV, not the last thing you consider after hours of interviews and speaking to 3 references. This is the most unpleasant and unprofessional interview experience I've ever had: - I spent a lot of time on their interviews - I experienced a lot of stress in the period between the recruiter's non-offer and the rejection phone call - and I am left with the embarrassment of having to explain this to my references who were so kind and generous to me with their times