I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 months. I interviewed at Amazon in Jan 2012
Interview
My interview process took place over the course of 4 four months with approximately 6 visits to their office to meet with various team members. The process was initially very informal with the hiring manager gauging my interest. Eventually we transitioned to the formal interview process consisting of a day of 1:1 interviews and a return visit to present my portfolio and one working session with the team.
The 1:1 interviews were very scripted. There was very little small talk or friendly banter and it was difficult to get a read on the employees since the sessions were so robotic. It was clear the employees had been through an interview training class. I was coached to talk fast and be direct by the recruiter. I was asked questions like "What's your biggest success?", "What's your biggest failure?", " What would you change about our products?". Most people I met with seemed more interested in typing notes on their computer than engaging in a conversation. The in-person meetings followed up with requests for documentation samples relating to the projects I talked through. The following week I returned to present my portfolio.
Communication and feedback was spotty and infrequent between visits. When I was contacted, I was repeatedly assured that they were very much still interested in me. Well over a month and a half after my last visit, I was asked to return one more time for an hour long working session with the team where we would solve a real-world problem for one of their products.
When we completed our session I was told everything went very well and the recruiter would be in touch. During this visit I was informed that they were planning on making an offer. Two weeks later I had not heard anything about my last visit so I contacted the recruiter. The recruiter replied with a rather informal email stating "We've selected another candidate".
In hindsight I believe the haphazard nature of the interview process and poor communication probably reflects the nature of the work environment so it's probably for the best that it didn't work out. That said, I would feel a lot better if I had been given an explanation for why they didn't make an offer considering the amount of time and effort that went into the process on both our ends. If I didn't make the effort to reach out I'm fairly certain they would have never told me they selected someone else.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
What was your biggest mistake and how did you correct it?
I submitted my application through Amazon Jobs for a Senior User Experience role. About a week later, I got an email from a recruiter asking to schedule a phone call. During the call, we talked about the role, my background, and my interest in Amazon. She explained the interview process, which would include an online assessment and four virtual interviews focusing on coding, system design, and behavioral questions based on Amazon’s Leadership Principles.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
“Tell me about a time when you had to simplify a complex process or system. How did you identify the complexity, what actions did you take, and what was the outcome?”
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 months. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2022
Interview
Through employee referral, I initially interviewed for a Senior UX Role and the first two rounds took quite a while (2 months) due to manager vacations. By the time they were ready to schedule long interview, it conflicted with a big trip of my own. Even though I was told they would wait, the role was filled while I was away - which is logical but they didn't need to set up a false expectation, not to mention time wasted trying to schedule and then reschedule the big interview.
A month later I had a split panel interview for two roles in a remote interview process with five people. It started with a portfolio review and then I had five 1:1 meetings including a whiteboard challenge.
Only 3 people attended my portfolio review and one them left half way through. I prepared about 50-60 examples for the LP related questions in STAR format but the questions I was asked were not quite what I had prepared and I found them difficult to answer. You need to give each interviewer different examples even if it's the same question.
The recruiter called 2 days later to inform me that they would not be making an offer at this time. She couldn't get me off the phone fast enough and was quite insensitive. I was told to try again in 2 years so I would have a chance to "sharpen my skills". No feedback was given.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time you helped someone on your team who didn't fit in or was falling behind?
Tell me about a time the team disagreed with your design but you knew you were right.
The process was a little bit on the ridiculous side of things. Initially began with the Hiring Mngr, then proceeded to a panel portfolio review, then numerous break out sessions. I believe I met with 9 people in total which apparently needed full agreement to make an offer. At least one was a "bar raiser". I found that the formulation of their questions were incredibly difficult to understand (even as someone who speaks native English and well accomplished in my career. In addition the questions are situational questions where you need to recall a time when something happened, respond in a STAR format, and understand which of their 14 principles they want you to formulate your response for. It was absolutely crazy despite being in what seemed to be full alignment with the hiring manager.
