I applied online. The process took 7 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2015
Interview
I had applied for a position online and was contacted by the recruiter. All communication with the recruiter was great and she always responded to my questions in a timely manner. I was applying for a position in another country and I was pleased to know that they could conduct the interviews in US.
I had total 3 phone screens and 4 in person interviews. The entire process from first communication from recruiter to final decision took around 7 weeks. The interviews were very technical in nature and generally interviewers looked for technical, managerial and leadership skills. In general questions were asked about a technical problem I solved and details on design and architectural decisions, how do you define success and how do you monitor applications health.
I enjoyed the phone screens and the interviewers were knowledgeable and great to talk to. It was done by TPM, SDM and Sr. SDM. The 2nd interview had a coding challenge for building java solution for a real life problem. Other 2 were about design, architecture, scalability, people management skills.
In-person interviewers was a complete opposite experience. It was with a Principal engineer, SDM, Sr. SDM, SDM. One was completely technical with solution for building a webstore and solving a real Amazon problem. 2nd interviewer was late and most unprepared interviewer I had ever seen. Questions she asked were very vague, she cut me off multiple times while answering and showed little interest in the interview. Same experience with another interviewer. Looks like some people in the company are very arrogant and self-centered.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you scale a web application with millions of users
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.
