Amazon Senior Cloud Architect interview questions

Firstly, we started with a 1-hour 'overview' interview where the interviewer inquired about me and why I wanted to work for Amazon, and I asked questions on the nature of the job role and the working culture. Then I was asked to prepare a 6-page proposal based on a fictional (but realistic) requirement from a client for a scalable AWS architecture to support a web application as well as other requirements. This had to cover network, security, non-functionals, etc., all the things that are bread-and-butter for architects. I was then invited to present my proposal in a 1-hour whiteboarding session. Finally, I had 6 follow-up interviews with people from various parts of AWS. A few of these were technical in nature, but also included sales, HR and hiring manager interviews. I had read a number of negative reviews of AWS interviews on Glassdoor, but my experience was highly positive. HR always kept me up to date on the feedback and status; each interviewer took the time to answer my questions. Plus I met 8 different people during the interview process, which meant I got to meet and form opinions on the people I would be working with in future; this is highly valuable and cannot be underrated.

Painful. 5 phone interviews. 2 with recruiters, then one that was supposed to be technical, then wasn't, then a technical one from a developer focused person that was asking me all sorts of development questions when this wasn't a development job. Then yet another, well I don't even know what the point was but they asked me more "why do you want to work here" stuff. Then a few days before the in person they give you a "test". It's like no info or requirements and you have to make a design and a plan that meets the requirements. Then there's a practical part where you have to go build an AWS instance in a certain place a certain way (which I found out later no one ever bothered to check - yes Amazon, I checked the HTTP logs and you didn't even look at the thing) The in person interview was 5 hours of back to back interviews with different people lasting about 45 minutes each. (They type the whole time which is annoying as hell. Also they just pass you off to the next guy, half of mine were video conference. there's no continuity whatsoever) There's about half technical stuff including some whiteboarding, and a while bunch of "tell me a time when" type stuff. There is at least a week of time in between each step. Each step involves a different person. The whole time they solicit input on their process, but in the end if you don't get the job they don't bother to tell you (you have to ask) then if you ask any questions they block your friggin emails. (No joke. I asked for feedback, they said they don't give any, then when I noticed they never checked the AWS instance I created for them I wanted to know if a mistake had been made.. my emails bounced a couple of times and now are completely ignored. Nice.) Oh, they tell you the whole time that you don't have to know AWS, they will teach you but this is a load of crap. Every question is about AWS, you have to do an AWS design, and do an AWS instance a certain way. If you didn't have any experience with it then you would never make it. What sucks is that I don't know why I didn't get the job. The in person interviews went well, they seemed genuinely interested. Now I wasted all this time on the actual process including taking a full day off work without much notice, listening to like 40 hours of ReInvent conference talks, went through a lot of training, did the stupid exercises they give and at the end of the day I didn't get the job and with no feedback it's all just a total waste of my time. It's pretty lame to be honest. I seriously literally had ~ 80 hours in the whole process, maybe even more, and have nothing to show for it.