Rivian interview questions

I virtually interviewed for this position in Normal, IL (USA) in the first week of November 2020. The process took ~10 weeks. Application: Applied for a different role in the same domain. First interview: (20 min) Got a call from the recruiter asking about my background and he told me that they had this position available and would I be interested in working in that role. I said yes. He set me up for an interview with the hiring manager on the next immediate day. Second interview: (30-45 min) Discussed the position with the manager and explained how my background and experience are related. Also told him how I can contribute to this role and how it would help me in my career. He set me up for the group interview round 10 days later. Final group interview: (4.5-5 hours) 5 rounds of interviews (45 min each) with - manager of a similar team, senior team member, director (hiring manager's manager), stakeholder/customer for my team, hiring manager again. Similar sets of questions about your background and the role. A lot of discussion on the current progress of implementation and the next steps. In the last interview of this series, the hiring manager told me I might hear back within a week. After that, I got no response for a couple of weeks. I followed up with the recruiter and he told me that he has not received anything from the team. I followed up a couple of times more after which the recruiter stopped responding. In the meantime, I found that they were busy hiring senior members in the team first so the process for this position was on hold. Then, the recruiter contacted me again in Jan 2021 and they would like to go ahead with me for this role. After I had a call with the hiring manager again who asked me about a success story and said that he will recommend me for this role to the CEO because the CEO approves the hiring for each and every position (just like in Tesla :p). I received an offer 5 days after that.

Each round, except the last round I was told by hiring manager I was his choice. It wasn't until the final round that I found out it was me and another candidate. As of today, my guess is neither of us got it because the position is still posted. Just bizarre and disappointed. I really wanted the position and was qualified.