I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (San Francisco, CA) in Nov 2021
Interview
I have never had a worst experience in my life ever. So bad in fact that I had to find an excuse to stop the interview process after the first interview. First and foremost, the 12 leaderships principals are the most toxic and non sense culture I have ever heard of. Not everyone can lead at the time, and not everybody in a company has the skills for it. It fosters a toxic culture of people "wanting to be the boss". I had a 1 hour interview with a hiring manager who spent an hour bragging about himself, explaining how fantastic as an engineer/inventor/researcher/manager he is. I can't even when we talked about me. (I thought I was the one interviewing ...). On a note, I did not apply for the position I was contacted by one of their head hunters. Do yourself a favor ;) Stay away.
The recruitment process consisted of several stages:
Online coding – a one-hour session focused on solving programming problems and demonstrating practical coding skills.
Technical meeting – a two-hour in-depth discussion covering system design, problem-solving approach, and technical knowledge relevant to the role.
Soft skills meeting – a 90-minute conversation assessing communication skills, teamwork, and overall cultural fit.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
describe your current project, most interesting bug and feature.
the most important thing you are proud of.
slide-window algorithm, string parser
Tough interview.
The Process: Automated Online Assessment (OA) with 2 coding questions and a system simulation, followed by a 4-round virtual Loop. Every single round started with 20 minutes of intense, behavioral behavioral questions diving into Amazon's Leadership Principles, followed by 25 minutes of technical coding or system design.
Amazon interviews are a test of mental endurance because you have to switch from deep behavioral storytelling straight into complex coding which can be so difficult. I used Apex Interviewer to practice the cognitive context switch. Running through their live-coding workspace helped me ensure my technical communication and architectural structures remained sharp and automatic, even after spending the first half of the interview defending my past project metrics. I fed the practice AI questions I extracted from glassdoor and gothamloop.
In the end, the offer was way lower than I hoped.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design the backend inventory tracking and placement service for a global fulfillment network, ensuring strict transactional consistency across multiple regional warehouses during peak shopping events.
Initial screening call with recruiter followed by a 1 hr hacker rank question on DSA. The final round was a panel consisting of 4 interviews ranging from technical design, more DSA and behaviour questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe a time when you disagreed with your team and how you resolved it