I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Jan 2013
Interview
The process before the actual interview was great. Excellent communication and preparation tips, materials and concepts to review first were offered. The interview itself was exactly as expected, a total of 4 hours spent with 4 people for 1 hour each. A variety of topics discussed in varying detail. Architecture was the most prevalent theme in the discussions along with handling high volumes. Some coding questions, but not much. Focus was on architecture and whiteboard the offered designs.
The response was very quick, but no additional feedback was ever provided. All the great communication before hand was ruined after the fact. I don't mind a rejection but after spending 4 hours in discussions at least give me one specific detail. Calls were maid and emails sent and no response to any of them. Before the interview, nothing went more than 24 hours without a response or follow up.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Drawing the system architecture on the whiteboard of a very vague scenario. I know it is expected to see how you approach a problem and what questions you ask, but it seemed the scenarios lacked detail in some cases, not all.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2013
Interview
Contacted by an internal recruiter.
Initial interview was behavioral with a Sr. Manager.
Second interview was supposed to be technical, but ended up being another behavioral interview with another Sr. Manager.
Process is excellent and they really do try to qualify you, as opposed to some who just seem to catch you saying something wrong.
Communication is excellent as well.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time when you disagreed with management an were able to influence their decision.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2013
Interview
An Amazon recruiter initially contacted me after I had updated my Linkedin page and asked if I would be willing to speak with her for 15 minutes. We spoke a few days later and the recruiter was super friendly and surprisingly knowledgeable about the technical directions that the project was headed. After 20 minutes of feeling each other out she asked if I’d be interested in moving forward with a hiring manager phone interview. I told her I wanted to think about it because the job would require me to move across the country. Before we hung up she described what the compensation package would be, which was quite substantial, and provided me with a link to a much more detailed job description. Ultimately I told her I couldn’t move forward with my kids entrenched at the their schools here on the east coast. Although the process ended almost before it began, I was very impressed with the everything about the initial contact, and would definitely consider reconnecting in a few years.