I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Herndon, VA) in Feb 2019
Interview
I had interviewed at AWS a few months prior and ended up getting close to the hire - but just failed to meet the technical qualifications for the role. However, I did really well on the leadership principles (STAR) based questions so I was then reached out to directly by a recruiter from AWS asking me to interview for an Operations Engineer position for AWS Managed Services team. Figured it was worth a shot so she had a scheduling coordinator schedule a technical phone screening with an engineer on the team. The interview consisted of a basic, short introduction of the role and the team and then straight into the technical questions. The questions ranged from how DNS works, SSL termination on load balancers, Linux troubleshooting and basic networking concepts. The day after the interview, the coordinator let me know they decided to pass. The recruiter let me know that I did well on the operating systems questions and I could eventually qualify for an Operations Associate position. I declined as I wasn’t interested in a new-grad level role as it didn’t make sense for me a few years into my career just so I could say I worked at AWS. As a whole, I’m glad I challenged myself as the interviews at Amazon are certainly no joke and will test your technical knowledge for the role you are applying for. Maybe eventually I’ll get the role I want.
In total I interviewed with about 10 people. By far the longest interview process I’ve ever undergone. The first interview was a standard phone screen. The subsequent interviews were more thorough spread across multiple days. On one day I interviewed with up to 6 people.
An online assessment, followed by an hour-long virtual screen, followed by 3 hour-long virtual interviews back-to-back. Almost all questions were behavioral, related to Amazon's Leadership Principles. Rounds were about two weeks apart, contacted very quickly after application.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
"Describe a time when you got more than halfway done with something and realized you had to start over"
I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Amazon (Austin, TX) in Jul 2025
Interview
Long process - 3-6 months. All I can say is that you must be fluent in the Amazon Management Principles as well as knowing the STAR method. This helped tremendously throughout the process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time where you.... etc and then it'll be about one of the management principles. They will also follow up and dig more and more about the STAR responses. So understand what you're saying.
