I was contacted by a recruiter through linked in. Did 3 phone interviews with high level managers. Got invited to an on site interview that took 4 hours. Still waiting for the result.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2016
Interview
I didn't have a phone screen with the recruiter because I was a referral. However, I did speak with the recruiter so that I could understand the hiring process and know what to expect. The recruiter and coordinator where best I've ever dealt with. They gave me very good information and responded quickly to my questions.
I started with a phone screen with another SDM which consisted mostly of behavioral and experience questions. The screen lasted approximately 30 minutes and I asked questions for another 15 minutes. The interviewer asked good probing followup questions.
The on-site interview was about three weeks later (due to my PTO) and was from 10-3, including a lunch interview which was more casual and was a good opportunity to ask lot of questions. I met with 7 different folks, each for ~45 minutes. I had one person do a systems design session, and one bar-raiser. All of them seemed like good people to work with. They were smart, asked good questions, some hard some easy. The bar-raiser, I'm pretty sure was a distinguished engineer or very senior principal, and was the most intense and challenging. Even so, he was professional and respectful.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I prepared by trying to understand the 14 leadership principals and then prepared several experiences per principal. I don't think it was necessary to memorize memorize the list of principals, but you should be able to rattle off a few in context and be able to talk about any of them if asked. Questions are usually, "tell a time when..." performance management, hard problems, process improvement, etc. You can't really prep for the design question but it will be vague so ask questions.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Toronto, ON) in Mar 2016
Interview
I went through three phone interviews. The first was a simple conversation likely intended to ensure that I had effective verbal communication skills as well as potentially relevant experience so as not to waste anyone's time with further interviews that weren't warranted.
I was told that the next interview would focus on my technical skills. There were a couple of questions related to my technical experience, followed by numerous questions related to my management experience - which definitely threw me off a little.
The third interview was meant to focus on my management experience. Again, there were a couple of questions related to that, before the topic changed entirely and dove into some major and in-depth technical questions.
Following that interview I was informed that they would not be proceeding any further.
The apparent bait & switch on the focus of the interviews didn't sit well with me, but to be fair I should have been better prepared to answer any question.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
There was a management-related question where I was asked to tell about a time that I had to fire someone.