I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Aug 2022
Interview
A recruiter reached out to me via email, but would only speak to me after I completed the online assessment (OA) which consisted of a coding piece and a workstyle simulation. OA was two leetcode style questions, one medium, one hard. Workstyle simulation was straightforward. I passed the OA well enough that I got moved directly to the final onsite, which consisted of 4 interviews over 5 hours, each of which had a technical half and a behavioral half. 3 of the technical were coding with syntax highlighting (can't run code) and 1 was system design.
One interviewer didn't like my behavioral answers so he proceeded to undercut every approach I took to the coding question resulting in me not getting any code down in the allotted time.
Had a total of 4 points of contact from HR, which was quite messy. My main recruiter was exceedingly disorganized. She sent me novels regarding how to prep for the onsite, but much of the info she provided was inaccurate or outdated. Example - Amazon recently added two new leadership principles, which were covered in a module on the jobs site, but not in the PDFs sent to me by my recruiter. Additionally, she initially described the onsite technical interviews as though all 4 were going to be system design with no coding. I had to correct her on this since that didn't seem to make any sense.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Give me an example of a time when something you tried to accomplish and failed.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (San Francisco, CA) in Apr 2022
Interview
Coding assessment link was sent, completed the first problem with no issues, coded the second problem and encountered issues with their assessment program... had to write workaround code to get it to compile properly.
Video interviewed with 4 people, first interviewer kept disconnecting from wifi and eventually had to interview me with half the time available and no video. Second interviewer just did not care whatsoever. Third interviewer was the only decent interviewer. Fourth interview was accompanied by a trainee and felt a bit unprofessional.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
System Design question about an issue currently being faced at Amazon
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Amazon in Jul 2022
Interview
Multiple recruiters reached out to me to have me interview with Amazon. The recruiter told me that they had fully remote positions available and relocation would not be required. So, I started the online coding assessment for these positions which took two hours. I passed the assessment with no problem. After finishing the assessment the recruiter told me that they didn’t have any remote positions in that department and sent me a list of other opportunities that were not interesting.
A week later, another Amazon recruiter reached out and said Amazon had an open position. I looked at the job description and thought it was a little more interesting, but required that I have experience developing a new system. I don’t have that experience so I told the recruiter. He said that’s fine. He also said that I need to take another online assessment because the previous online assessment was for SDE I. So, I did. Two hours later I finished it with no problems.
Then, I proceeded to the final interview. It went well and the interviewer told me they would reach out with next steps in less than a week. I reached out to the recruiter a week later regarding the status and received no response. Two weeks later, still no response. Three weeks later the recruiter asked again if I had experience developing new systems. I told him no. He responded that I could not be considered for this position without that experience.
A week later a third recruiter reached out and wanted me to interview for an Amazon affiliated company. I told him sure, but my interview process better be better than the one I finished recently. He asked how long ago the interview was and then proceeded to tell me that I was on a cool down period since I had already interviewed with Amazon.
Overall, five hours of my time wasted with a forced hiring “cool down” because a recruiter couldn’t listen in the first place.
Lessons learned: Amazon recruiters don’t listen, Amazon interview process is a waste of time, and to Amazon, interviewees are disposable.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What does your typical day look like as a current software developer?