I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon Web Services in Jun 2024
Interview
Contacted for an intro call by one of their recruiters maybe a week or so after I submitted the application. Seemed to be very robotic and reading from a script, as half the call was her trying to upsell their "vestment" and "growth" opportunities over actually talking about the role. Said that I would be taking an assessment, then an interview with the hiring manager, then a loop interview with 5 different people, about an hour each.
Assessment was fairly straight forward, but far too long at about 90+ minutes primarily covering situational/behavioral responses. One section was picking between 2 options of trite like "I am a team player" or "I like a challenge." Last was a technical evaluation allowing you to select 3 different technology areas you are comfortable with. Again, nothing difficult if you've ever worked an IT job before and have common sense, just that the amount of questions is ridiculous.
The worst part of the experience was the first interview. From the get-go, they like to emphasis their 'leadership values' and the interviewer explicitly asked me to adhere to the STAR method and distinguish my answers between "I" and "we." These are things that normally should flow in a conversation and stringently asking for them tells me you don't know how to understand candidates.
The hiring manager did not understand most of my responses very well, repeatedly asking me to reiterate things I already reiterated on clearly. I was also rudely interrupted at one point when I tried to pivot my example to something I felt could better convey my experience, not even being allowed to speak on my work.
Despite any answer I gave, the follow up was always something like "well, what was your impact on this situation." I'm sorry, but I gave you the scenario in STAR format and if you can't discern anything from that by now, it's not me, it's you. Everything seemed to be taken at face value on their part, I was given very little chance to provide a good overview of my experience (as it related to the role) and I couldn't help but feel like I was being looked down on the entire time.
Amazon places far too much reliance in stiffly following their arbitrary guidelines rather than actually having a conversation with prospective candidates. At no point did I feel like I was talking to an actual human.
The kicker is that this role was required to be on-site in Seattle when the hiring manager didn't even live in the same state. I have had less-than-ideal interviews before at big corporations, but this one felt completely 'off.' Did not continue in the process and I am actually glad about it. Maybe FAANG looks good on the resume, but I don't think this was worth the arduous steps.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What was a time you could not deliver on something and how did you handle it?
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon Web Services (Tokio) in Dec 2023
Interview
After an online testing, that tested me about how I would troubleshoot some typical problems that occurs on cloud environment, I proceeded to the next stage but I declined, because the test itself gave me an impression that I would not be a fit.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you troubleshoot network latency spike on a specific Linux server?
Prepare for LP questions! You can find tips on Google or Youtube. Some say you don't need aws experience, but it's nonsense. They asked very deeply about aws service. Knowledge of cs such as network or os is essential.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How to take action when a 503 error occurs on the server