For those of you considering interviewing with AMAZON tread lightly. From the get go they will make you believe you are the chosen one as far as candidates go but don’t “put the horse before the carriage “ Because the process is long and cumbersome . As well they ask you about your salary , and tell you about all the exclusive signing bonuses that come with the job as if you were already being offered a position only to get your hopes up ; don’t fall for it. In my opinion that topic should only be discussed with a candidate when it’s a for sure thing. From start to finish it was 6 weeks of availability nightmares and back and forth with recruiting. Whether or not it was the truth I was told the position needed to be filled immediately as the intended start date had passed several days before I actually got the first call. First part is scheduling availability for a 15 min phone call with recruiting to determine if you are a good fit to go to a hiring team member. As long as you know the job description you are applying for you should pass this portion with flying colors. For the second round woth the hiring manager it’s all about one or two leadership principles and maybe a functional component of the job requirements however no technical assessments here just conversation albeit if you just talk about what’s highlighted in interview questions below you will pass this area easily too. Don’t get ahead of yourself though because there’s still a long way to go. After scheduling two weeks of your availability they will then set you with a 6 hour POD virtual onsite interview with members of the hiring team (SIDE NOTE: None of the 6 people interviewing me had more than 4 years experience with company) . For a POD interview they need at least 3 candidates but it’s likely 1000’s applied so know your stuff. For the onsite virtual you will more than likely have to participate in a technical round so if you don’t know SQL,Python , Excel don’t kid yourself and bow out accordingly as to not waste anyone’s time. They will try and stump you and see how you can handle it or see if you tell them you don’t know. Last part of the interview will be the actual hiring manager and mainly this is all leadership principles and simple conversation. Once they are done they tell you you will hear back within 2-5 business days for me it was 7, but a lot of different factors go into that and when they can schedule a debrief . Now on to the debrief portion .. all of the onsite interviewers will individually evaluate you and then come together to talk about it. They will then do a vote , luckily the hiring manager has the ability to swing the vote to overrule any decisions. There is 4 major focus areas , 4 must be great , 1 must be good , the other can be taught , and of course leadership is always factored in too. Now on to the result , ultimately I was denied a position because of the functional component of the interview. I was assessed on writing a few lines of code for SQL and basic questions for Excel exercise. I am advanced in excel more so than SQL and the excel and SQL parts were all pretty elementary beginner level knowledge at that. I was asked to write code for several different scenarios to which I aced without hesitation which leads me to my follow up. When I asked for feedback on how I can improve myself I was told AMAZON does not provide feedback because that is all kept internal for the hiring team. Which with my current employer and even many other places they always welcome giving feedback. Nonetheless recruiter did tell me it possibly was SQL if they had to guess to which I aced in all accords without hesitation so that answer from them was obviously a punt. If you made it this far into the review I thank you and leave you with this .. you can have all the knowledge in the world , however the process is cumbersome, disheartening , and involves to many people for a company of this magnitude so be weary.
