I applied online. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Jun 2008
Interview
I received a call from a recruiter who got my resume from an online job portal. There were 2 rounds of phone interviews which were fairly basic. The in person interview was conducted in the head office lasting almost the whole day with 6 different persons. Each interview was roughly 45 mins long. The questions ranged from technical to business. Each of the interviewer had a specific area to test, like technical, analytical, business, customer focus etc.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
How will you go about designing a library database?
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Sep 2007
Interview
The initial phone interview was thorough yet reasonable. The person doing the interview was paying attention. During the phone interview I was asked to come in for the in-person interview. The in-person interview was a series of 1:1s. 6 to be exact. I was interviewed by both peers and superiors including 2 program mangers, 1 bus dev person, 2 directors and a 1 VP. The interview room I was in was very small - with one table and a couple of chairs.
The follow-up after the interview was not so great and made a good experience fairly negative. There was a promise to get back to me in 1-2 days - it was more like 2-3 weeks. I have heard mixed stories about this.
Advice: Don't BS because they will drill down. You need to be able to back up anything on your resume and anything you say. If you don't know something admit it and do your best to work through the problem. Show your breadth of thought by talking out all possible scenarios. Don't be afraid to challenge what they say or to dig in to what they ask. Get clarification. Question their question (nicely) before answering. They want to see grace under pressure.
You will get a very good feel for Amazon while you are there. Pay attention to the people interviewing you. Do you want to work with them/for them? Ask questions. Look around. Amazon is great for some but not for all. You will want to find that out during the interview. More than most companies I have interviewed with/worked for - Amazon has a distinct culture. The interview is about fit. Make sure it works both ways.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
You seem more like a coordinator than a program manager, why should I hire you as a program manager. (It seemed provocative rather than information gathering).