I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Jan 2007
Interview
I had a phone screen with one of the senior engineers on the team. He asked me a series of software engineering questions involving Object Oriented design. It wasn't too hard of an interview as they started off with feeler questions such as "What is polymorphism? What is a hash table" It then moved on to algorithms where they wanted me to come up with the algorithm to shuffle a deck of cards. Afterwards, they wanted me to analyze the Big O(n) run time of my algorithm. I was then invited to an on campus interview that consisted of talking to 4 different software engineers. Every single engineer was constantly making me code on the whiteboard. I would definitely practice coding on the whiteboard before coming to the interview. They didn't care which language I used. They also have a bar raiser who is supposed to make you sweat. All in all, the interview process was fair.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
How would you implement a top 3 word count in a text editor application?
I applied through college or university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Jan 2007
Interview
I interviewed with two different developers from Amazon for about 45 minutes each. I think the regular process is more involved, but they came to our college campus and so it was probably limited. The questions were normal interview fare about OO design and concepts and a few simple coding problems.
I loved the fact that the interviewers didn't feel like they were looking down on me and even gave me the proper answers for the parts I got wrong. Despite not doing perfectly they must have like me becuase I got an offer within a month (which I accepted). I've loved it here since.
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Nov 2008
Interview
I initially contacted Amazon through the career fair at my university; I gave them my resume at that time. Shortly after that, they contacted me to schedule an initial technical interview with a software development manager. The first interview was difficult, but I apparently answered the questions well enough to be invited back for three more technical interviews with Amazon software engineers. I went through a total of four in-person 1-on-1 technical interviews, each lasting approximately 45 minutes. After I completed those interviews, a recruiter notified me within a few days to notify me that Amazon would be offering me a job, and a different recruiter contacted me a couple of days after that to give me the specifics of the offer.
My advice: the interview questions will be difficult, but be confident, explain your thought process well, and retain your composure even if you think the interview is going badly. You might be doing better than the interviewer is letting on.
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