I applied through other source. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Amazon (Hyderabad) in Mar 2015
Interview
Amazon contacted me after viewing my profile on LinkedIn. I got an mail and 2 phone calls to finalize the time of interview. It took 1 week to for the process. The process is well organized. The interview was telephonic. The interview lasted about one hour. The interview revolved around generic questions, like the work I was doing, people management and generic knowledge about software development. No typical questions on DS or programming languages.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The interviewer introduced himself and the work he is doing.
Started with why do you want to join Amazon ?.
Asked about the project I am currently working on. What is the thing that makes me proud of in the current project. My contribution in it. How many team members, the responsibilities and people management. What issues I faced and resolved in people management.
He asked me to outline the architecture of large distributed system. Then asked how will you make the architecture scalable. How will you ensure that a online systems in never down.
I applied online. The process took 7 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2015
Interview
I had applied for a position online and was contacted by the recruiter. All communication with the recruiter was great and she always responded to my questions in a timely manner. I was applying for a position in another country and I was pleased to know that they could conduct the interviews in US.
I had total 3 phone screens and 4 in person interviews. The entire process from first communication from recruiter to final decision took around 7 weeks. The interviews were very technical in nature and generally interviewers looked for technical, managerial and leadership skills. In general questions were asked about a technical problem I solved and details on design and architectural decisions, how do you define success and how do you monitor applications health.
I enjoyed the phone screens and the interviewers were knowledgeable and great to talk to. It was done by TPM, SDM and Sr. SDM. The 2nd interview had a coding challenge for building java solution for a real life problem. Other 2 were about design, architecture, scalability, people management skills.
In-person interviewers was a complete opposite experience. It was with a Principal engineer, SDM, Sr. SDM, SDM. One was completely technical with solution for building a webstore and solving a real Amazon problem. 2nd interviewer was late and most unprepared interviewer I had ever seen. Questions she asked were very vague, she cut me off multiple times while answering and showed little interest in the interview. Same experience with another interviewer. Looks like some people in the company are very arrogant and self-centered.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you scale a web application with millions of users
I applied through other source. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Dec 2014
Interview
Was pretty intense and tiring although I expected it to be like that. Passed through several phone interviews. Last interview was in person. They flew me to Seattle and paid for everything including pretty expensive hotel. I was given an option to stay for extra couple of days to get familiar with Seattle on Amazon's expense. Interview started from 10:30 AM and finished by 5 PM with 1 hour lunch brake. I had 7-8 individual interviews during that day. I talked to both groups of 2-4 people as well as individuals. Some of people we silent listeners, some of them actively participated in the interview process. Everybody was taking a lot of notes. I was asked sometimes the same question several times. I guess, it is difficult to sync between teams or they probed me whether I'll give them different answers? Got a lot of questions about people management, soft management skills. One of the interviews was completely dedicated to architecture so I needed to come up with high-level design of future Amazon sub-system. I think interview process was professional. I used lunch as a opportunity to talk to one of the Amazon employees and it was very helpful: I learned a lot about company itself (wasn't the person who interviewed me).
Got a call from recruiter 4 days later that they are not ready to give me an offer. However they encouraged to try other positions in the company in half a year.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What do I do to grow "star" employees even further?