Skip to contentSkip to footer
  • Community
  • Jobs
  • Companies
  • Salaries
  • For employers
      Notifications

      Loading...

      Elevate your career

      Discover your earning potential, land dream jobs, and share work-life insights anonymously.

      employer cover photo
      employer logo
      employer logo

      Amazon

      Engaged employer

      About
      Reviews
      Pay and benefits
      Jobs
      Interviews
      Interviews
      Related searches: Amazon reviews | Amazon jobs | Amazon salaries | Amazon benefits | Amazon conversations
      Amazon interviewsAmazon Research Scientist II interviewsAmazon interview


      Glassdoor

      • About / Press
      • Awards
      • Blog
      • Research
      • Contact Us
      • Guides

      Employers

      • Free Employer Account
      • Employer Centre
      • Employers Blog

      Information

      • Help
      • Guidelines
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy and Ad Choices
      • Do Not Sell Or Share My Information
      • Cookie Consent Tool
      • Security

      Work With Us

      • Advertisers
      • Careers
      Download the App

      • Browse by:
      • Companies
      • Jobs
      • Locations
      • Communities
      • Recent posts

      Copyright © 2008-2026. Glassdoor LLC. "Glassdoor," "Worklife Pro," "Bowls" and logo are proprietary trademarks of Glassdoor LLC.

      Followed companies

      Stay ahead in opportunities and insider tips by following your dream companies.

      Job searches

      Get personalised job recommendations and updates by starting your searches.

      Top companies for "Compensation and Benefits" near you

      avatar
      Google
      4.5★Compensation and benefits
      avatar
      Meta
      4.6★Compensation and benefits
      avatar
      Velocity Black
      4.2★Compensation and benefits

      Bowls

      Get actionable career advice tailored to you by joining more bowls.

      Company Bowl sample

      Want the inside scoop on your own company?

      Check out your Company Bowl for anonymous work chats.

      Research Scientist II Interview

      12 Feb 2015
      Anonymous employee
      Seattle, WA

      Other Research Scientist II interview reviews for Amazon

      Research Scientist II Interview

      14 Jul 2020
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Declined offer
      Neutral experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Amazon

      Accepted offer
      Positive experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Jan 2014

      Interview

      Initial phone discussions, day of in-house interviews, follow-on discussions about leveling and responsibilities, offer. On-site interviews covered business process, problem solving (some with a situational component, see below), management experience. At least one paired interview (a junior plus a senior person). Didn't actually get to meet my potential manager. Offers from Amazon are tricky. Pay scale will be considerably under market value. Early on they make that up with a cash bonus; after year 2, they make that up with stock grants (not options, these are just shares that you are given as pay). However, there is a catch with all that. The bonus money is forfeit if you leave early, and you'll have to return it. So, unless you can afford to pay that money back, you're on the hook for a minimum of two years. After that period, the stock grants will make your pay competitive or better, but only if (a) you sell them when you get them and (b) the stock continues to go up year over year. If the price levels or falls, you will be stuck with a lower than average salary and not enough stock to bring you up to parity.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      There was a question about how to optimally deliver water to the cages in a zoo with the minimum work. What made the problem challenging was that it was presented as a "situational" interview. That is, the interviewer will do things to make the experience more stressful. They will interrupt, attempt to distract, make you argue in favor of a step, and run out the clock so that you only have a short time to finish the last and hardest part of the question, and then pressure you to complete it.
      1 Answer

      Interview

      Initial call with a recruiter, hiring manager phone screening, one VC interview, and then the onsite interview with five interviewers. Two of the onsite interviews were just asking about the leadership principles, and the rest of three included some of the leadership principle behavioral questions + technical questions + live coding.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      What was the time you had to follow the group decision you disagreed with? What is the most innovative research worked on? What was the impact?
      2 Answers

      Research Scientist II Interview

      11 Oct 2012
      Anonymous employee
      Seattle, WA
      Accepted offer
      Positive experience

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2012

      Interview

      Went through 4 Phone Interviews, one with the hiring manager and 3 technical phone screens. After which I was called onsite to their Seattle HQ, where I had another full day of interviews. I signed an NDA, so would not go into details, but all in all the interviews evaluated both my algorithmic/programming skills and math/statistics/machine learning skills. The interviewers posed a lot of real worlds scenarios for me to solve and judged me based on my approach.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      The unexpected part was some questions regarding multi variate calculus which I had not expected.
      Answer question
      4