I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2014
Interview
I was initially contacted by a recruiter via LinkedIn. After an initial phone call to discuss my background and interests, went through 2 phone interviews. These include a detailed discussion on my experience and specifics on projects I worked on (be ready to explain what you did, how, and why you did it), as well as some coding. Amazon seems very interested in understanding the complexity of your work and how versed you are in sharing those experiences.
After these interviews, I was scheduled for an onsite interview at the Seattle HQ. Amazon puts you in contact with a travel desk that arranges your flight and accommodations for you. Feel confident in asking for flights/airlines or other requests you may have, as they are friendly and will try to get what you ask for. Amazon flies you a day before the interview and puts you on a very nice hotel 10 min away from the office.
Onsite interview day included five 1:1 interviews, including two development managers and three SDEs, focusing on different areas. You are received by your recruiter and have a 30 min chat with him. You get some details on what to expect during the day, and the days after the interview.
Most interviewers will be writing notes while you chat (they ask if you're ok with it - I wonder if you say no, what happens?!). Questions include behavioral and technical, as well as coding on a whiteboard. Interviewers are friendly and help you through the process - ask for what are you thinking and give you hints in case they see you getting stuck. The best way to easy the nerves is to keep talking as you tackle problems. It helps more than what you think.
I heard back from my recruiter after 2 days saying the team wanted to move forward and extend an offer. A couple days after I got the details of it and after some light negotiation I accepted.
My advise is to avoid focusing too much on the horror stories you find online, and just make the experience your own. It is unlikely you'll get something like you have read here. It will be unique and a good learning experience, whatever the outcome is. Just try to enjoy it as much as you can and please, don't go into it without serious preparation before hand. Even if you don't make it you want to give a good impression, and of course, avoid post-interview "what if I have..." thoughts.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I cannot disclose specific questions due to NDA. However, just get ready and feel comfortable with basic CS (algorithms, data structures, OO design). Make sure you can cleanly write code for simple, well-known problems, and that you can explain in few words these concepts.
I applied through college or university. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Amazon (College Park, MD) in Feb 2014
Interview
Applied through both career fair and Amazon website. Received an email about scheduling an interview a week later. Interviewed with two people for 45 mins each. Both technical but they gave me a chance to ask questions at the last minute. First one was all technical and somewhat challenging (they don't expect you to finish the code). Second one, the interviewer asked few behavioral questions in the beginning but jumped right into technical questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Told me to write a whole data structure with certain features.
I applied online. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Oct 2013
Interview
1. Contacted by a recruiter out of nowhere
2. Took an online assessment test
It has 3 questions. Detect and remove loop in linked list, calculate first five highest averages
and return as a Map and the other I forgot. Make sure to write code without errors and mention comments for the code in detail.
3. I passed the online test and was invited for onsite interview.
As I walked into the lobby, I found 40 people waiting to be interviewed. It was horrible. Everyone had four rounds of interviews, each 45 minutes and it included lunch with the interviewers.
Questions are straight from Cracking the code interview. How to print a tree in level odder with each level in new line, a hash map problem which was easy, modifications to hash maps, how to find if a a graph is 2-colorable or not? Code it. I did well on all questions, analyzed runtimes and was happy about how the 4 rounds went.
4. After 2 weeks I received a rejection. I expected this because out of 40, they had to pick about 10. Many of them interned at Amazon before or had at least 2-3 years of experience. It was relative and I didn't feel bad about it.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How to find if a a graph is 2-colorable or not? Code it.