As the $344 million factory went up just down the road from the company’s leased plant in Fremont, Calif., workers watched as pallets of unsold solar panels stacked up in storage. Many wondered: Was the factory needed?

“After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right,” said former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn. “Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy.”…

Sakera Alima, who began working at Solyndra as a financial analyst in the fall of 2010, said she was warned by a mentor that the company wasn’t doing well financially.

“She said, ‘I’ve been working here the past three years and I feel like any day now I might not have my job,’ ” Alima recalled. “I knew it was a risk.”