Developer applicants have rated the interview process at Amazon with 3.3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 67% positive. To compare, the company-average is 61.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
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The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2010
Interview
I got the interview invitation one week after I applied online. First I had two phone interviews 45 minutes each. The questions are not difficult, for example, why you apply for amazon? Find the least common ancestor of a binary search tree. The definition of virtual function, polymorphism, etc. Then, I got onsite interview invitation. The entire interview process lasts for about 5-6 hours including a lunch interview. Onsite interview is much more difficult than phone screen. I got problems like coding boggle puzzle problem, reverse a binary tree and design a distributed messaging system, etc.
I applied through college or university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Oct 2009
Interview
The interview was arranged through my university and occurred on campus.
I met with one an engineer. He was pleasant, but not extremely friendly.
The interview started by asking me a bit about my classes and previous work experience. We then talked about what exactly I was interested in doing at Amazon, things I liked about Amazon products, etc. I was asked what features I would want to approve on their website.
There were three technical questions. The first question asked how you was something like, how would you find the most common word in a string. It wasn't really that difficult, and after talking it through with the interviewer, I wrote code for it. He seemed happy with my answer.
Second, he asked me a question related to the first one but with about databases. I don't really have any database experience so I really struggled with this.
Last, he asked what happens when a person goes on the Amazon website, as in what happens between the person typing "www.amazon.com" and the page loading up. I answered pretty well, but needed a little help. He was nice and gave me a few hints which led me to the right answer.
Overall I felt positive about the interview except for the database question. The next day I received an email, however, saying that I hadn't been chosen for the next round. Oh well.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Describe what happens between the time a person types in "www.amazon.com" and they see the web page on their computer.
The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Amazon in Feb 2010
Interview
First I get two phone interviews. In the phone interviews, they asked me a lot questions about c/c++. Because I have a lot of experience about Unix network programming. They ask me something about tcp/udp and thread programming. For the onsite interview, they ask me something about design pattern, and how to design a phonebook. They also asked something about shell programming. It is not very hard.
but you need to ask hints and make sure whether your idea is correct. : )