I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA)
Interview
Applied through their job site to a position that turned out to not match my interests. Recruiter convinced me to continue the application process by looping in another clearly hesitant recruiter from the group I was actually interested in working for, with the assurance that I'd be interviewing for positions on both teams. Phone interview was very easy and I received positive feedback from both the interviewer and recruiter, who set up an in-person interview.
After the in-person was arranged, original recruiter called to say that the position on the other team - the only reason I had continued with the process in the first place - was gone (despite still being up on their website). He assured me that it was not a bait-and-switch, which confirmed without a doubt that it was.
Went ahead with the in-person for the experience. Full day of interviews, with questions ranging from specific coding tasks out of an undergraduate data structures&algorithms textbook, to extremely open-ended design, to repetitive inquiries into personal achievements. Some of the interviews went very well, some merely okay, and the recruiter promised I'd hear back within a couple days.
After a highly positive initial response from the recruiter, I was told that they "really tried to place me in the group but couldn't find a position that was a good fit," which is the strangest "no" I have ever heard or heard of.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Aug 2014
Interview
This has to be the most unprofessional hiring experience I've yet seen. Interview went really good, even the interviewer confirmed he was impressed. Another amazon group was interested in interviewing me, but they saw the outstanding interview, so at 2 weeks after I asked the recruiter what happened. She pushed the manager to get the interviewer to do his writeup. I asked again at 3 weeks and found out they still hadn't written anything up about the interview. Recruiter said she elevated to the managers boss. 2 days after asking got a short note they weren't interested. Guess it don't help your application process if the manager gets beat up for slacking off.
Totally unprofessional group.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They were all easy. Dynamic programming question and distributed diff question.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Aug 2014
Interview
One technical phone screen, had to write some code using a shared text editor.
Proceeded to onsite technical interview with 4 different people. Every interviewer asked 1 to 2 technical questions that involved writing code on the board.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Various questions about the leadership principles.