First round was a typical screening interview with a recruiter; mostly information exchange. Second interview was with the hiring manager and a key member of the team. They asked standard behavioral questions. The problem is that neither were on camera.
If you're interviewing a person to report to you and you're not on camera, you may as well start the interview by saying "I'm not seriously considering you and I don't care about your candidate experience," because that is exactly the message it sends. I would expect AWS (esp. senior managers) to know better, especially given the importance of employer brand. It would have been OK if the recruiter was off camera, but the hiring manager? AWS needs to provide some interview training to its senior people.
I will probably never agree to an interview with AWS, but I will definitely share this negative AWS interviewing experience with my network.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe a project you worked on that involved the use of data.
After you submit your application, the recruiter contacts you followed by hiring manager depending on role. If you pass you enter what is known as the loop. This consists of 4 - 6 interviewers in multiple interviews. Overall process was smooth and well coordinated by recruiter.
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon Web Services (Auckland, )
Interview
Horrible. The interview hiring manager was off-camera and ate her lunch! Not one question about me as a person. It was the second interview in a series of 5 interviews.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
All questions need to be answered based on STAR. All situational questions.
I applied online. The process took 8 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon Web Services in Apr 2023
Interview
Recruiter interview followed by 5 interviewers separately - each using STAR format & leadership principles. Although no salary shared prior to the interview process - they ask you to commit 6 hours + without having any rough confirmation for this. Also challenging to plan around a busy current day job. My experience for the 5 was each interviewer starting with asking why you want to work for AWS. Then reading questions from a set script, it felt like a majority asking very similar things - particularly around dealing with conflict / critical feedback / unpopular view, etc. The questions were followed up with "Ok, but why you" or "Why did you do that and nobody else". Very behavioural questions which were all very similar and not very job specific, sometimes feeling irrelevant. Overall it was an interesting process, and the team members interviewing all very friendly. However I found it difficult to elaborate when all the questions were so focused on one particular point / behaviour/ theme.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Describe something you had to sacrifice in the short term for long term gain. 2. Tell me about a time moving ahead without manager approval. 3. Share a time when you had a conflict with someone at work. 4. Tell me about a time when you had to have a difficult conversation / conflict with a manager? How did you approach it and what were the outcomes?
