I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in May 2012
Interview
I was contacted by amazon.com's HR department. Apparently they are scanning LinkedIn.com because I didn't apply. I had an initial phone conversation describing the process. They said there would be up to 3 phone interviews. I had 2. The first was a technical interview (bring a pad of paper). The second interview was related to 'soft skills' for management.
After that, they skipped the 3rd interview and had me flown out for an all-day interview on the campus. The interview was 6 hours long. Some of it was technical and some of it was 'soft'. There was a lot of white-boarding. I never saw any part of the campus other than the one conference room.
I was asked several times why I wanted to work there and I wasn't sure if I actually did. In fact, it wasn't until I actually arrived in person that they told me what the position was. The interview process should be such that both sides can see if it's a good fit. I never got a chance to really ask questions about the position or the company beyond very light superficial questions. There was no effort to 'pitch' the position to me. I think that there was an assumption that there'd be no reason I wouldn't want the position.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
All the questions were typical and can be seen here already. I signed an NDA so I won't be posting any of the questions here.
Phone screen, 5 1 hour interviews for loop
Each hour was dedicated to 2 LPs. System design was more collaborative than i anticipated which was a pleasant surprise. The phone screen mostly focused on my previous experiences
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard LP based scenarios, system design was actual system the team owns
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Tokio) in Feb 2026
Interview
The interview process is straightforward but intense.
First interview was with another Software Dev Manager in the same team. After that the famous loop interview where I had to take 5 interviews in a row over two days ( using paid holidays at work ). Recruiter gave a lot of information about possible questions and helped with materials. However, I had to use same stories few times as the different interviewers asked same questions few times.
Everything is okay, I had a good time during the interviews and it was a good exercise. However, I simply do not understand why they have to call to reject? I am not a customer to be obsessed with. A straight cut rejection via email works better than taking time out of my busy schedule.
If they used this time to share some feedback, that would be useful. If they do not share any reason why I have to continue formal small talk just to get the rejection on my face?
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A time you were driving toward a goal and realized more than halfway in that it may not be the best goal.
Had 1 round of System design interview. I thought the interview went ok, if not bad, it went decently well. Received a rejection response, while asking to apply 6 months later.
