Amazon.com Interview Questions & Reviews
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Updated Feb 14, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 1214 ratings 
“Difficult” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 1214 ratings
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| 51–60 of 1,213 Amazon.com Interviews | Sort by |
Software Development Engineer In Test at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 27, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2012 in Seattle, WA (took 4+ weeks)
Initially had a small preliminary interview at a job fair at UC San Diego. When I couldn't be scheduled into the on campus interviews they funneled me into the normal full time position interview process. I had two phone interviews and am waiting on a reply for either a third interview or to be flown up to Seattle.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
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Technical Engagement Manager at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 27, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2012 in Seattle, WA (took 1 week)
Was contacted by recruiter who wanted to set up phone interview for position. Recruiter gave a link to the job posting online. The recruiter didn't answer a question I had about the job, and I assumed I would get more information about the position during the phone interview.
At the beginning of the phone interview, the interviewer informed me that the original position had been filled, but they had another opening for the same position in a different division. (The specific division had not been listed on the job description, so this didn't make too much difference.)
There were a lot of early questions aimed at gauging my understanding of the requirements of the position, which in hindsight, were not very clear from the job description. About halfway through the interviewer did go into detail about what the position was (essentially a project manager who works with clients integrating Amazon Services).
The interviewer said I wasn't a fit for the position (due to lack of project management experience), but gave me some good feedback and referred me back to the recruiter. Overall, I think the job description/requirements in the online posting were not reflective of what the hiring manager was actually looking for.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Brand Specialist at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 22, 2012 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 2 weeks)
I applied online and received a request from HR for a phone interview just a couple weeks later. The phone interview was an hour, and they asked about my background, and to answer some simple questions about branding and marketing. I have my MBA and it seemed to be very case-study based.
Two days later, HR wrote back requesting a 2nd phone interview with a different person. It was pretty much identical to the first.
After the phone interview, the process went quickly and they asked me to come in that week for an afternoon of interviews. I think I met with 6 people total.
The process was AWFUL. So negative. Their strategy is to have all 6 people ask you the same questions, and see if you learn from the first and apply the new concepts in the second interview. It was very frustrating, because they would ask a question, I'd answer, then they'd repeat the question over and over, wanting me to come up with new answers. Example: "how would you make the amazon site more user friendly"? Or, "if you had to price DVDs, how would you go about it?". I would answer that I would want more information, i.e. sales targets, margin, inventory etc. My answer wouldn't be good enough, so they'd ask the question again, I'd answer differently, then they'd ask again and again! Then I'd start with a new interviewer, and went through the same song and dance 6 times over 6 hours. It was torment.
I'm a smart person with two degrees from top 20 business schools. I'm used to the socratic method and being put on the spot. This was a different experience, and a negative one to say the least.d
On my 3rd interview, a senior vendor manager finished meeting with me, then proceeded to review me to the next interviewer directly outside the conference room I was in. I could hear everything! So tacky and unprofessional.
The final interviewer asked me (again), how I would change the website. I gave the example of the camera category, and how the brand page didn't discern well between amateurs and professionals. Her response was to SLAM her pen on the table, then ask me to "sell it to her". I started saying the attributes of the pen and talking about how it would benefit her. Then she responded "you didn't ask if I was an amateur pen user or a professional". Just a jerk.
To top it off, the HR person brought a laptop in at the end of the day and I had to complete a 45 minute assessment test. It was an excel file with inventory, pricing, and margins of different DVDs. I had to price them for sale. Honestly, I just patched together equations and wrote different numbers. Without a buying background, I felt set up to fail. They would have known I didn't have those skills if they read my resume or the two phone interviewers had mentioned anything to her! It was painful.
Overall I'd say that Amazon is full of intelligent people and doing some great stuff. That said, I would never work there. People seem to hate their lives, are so uppity and negative. Not a culture I'd want to experience day after day.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Skills Test.
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Software Engineer Intern at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 31, 2012 — 0 of 1 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 3 weeks)
Received email for full time position. I declined and asked for an internship position. They setup two back to back phone screens on one day. Cleared them and appeared for the next phone interview 2 weeks later.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 26, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2012 in Seattle, WA (took 3 weeks)
Phone interview, then on-site, 5 1:1 and 2 1:2, including lunch.
Various coding and design questions. I suspect that at least one interviewer did not get my aproach to the problem.
I answered most of their questions (screwed up on a simple one) and was under impression that the interview went well. Nonetheless they decided to accept another candidate. No explanation.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 26, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Seattle, WA (took a day)
A recruiter contacted me via email.
I chose a day where I could fly to Seattle and attend a day long interview process (There were 4 interviews, each 45 minutes long).
Before the interviews started, we had an informal lunch with some of their employees.
All of the interviewers were nice except one. The interviewer (some manager - which is even more shocking) then became so unprofessional to the point that I felt like yelling at him and leaving the room. Thankfully, there was at least one professional in the room (i.e. me) and I kept working at the problem till he finally got out.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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Software Development Engineer In Test at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 26, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2012 in Seattle, WA (took 4 weeks)
I applied online in Dec. 2011 and was emailed to schedule a time for a phone interview of a technical nature. I was told that the process included two more phone interviews and then if successful on those then they will fly you into Seattle for a in person technical interview again
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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Senior User Experience Designer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 20, 2012 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2012 (took 4 months)
My interview process took place over the course of 4 four months with approximately 6 visits to their office to meet with various team members. The process was initially very informal with the hiring manager gauging my interest. Eventually we transitioned to the formal interview process consisting of a day of 1:1 interviews and a return visit to present my portfolio and one working session with the team.
The 1:1 interviews were very scripted. There was very little small talk or friendly banter and it was difficult to get a read on the employees since the sessions were so robotic. It was clear the employees had been through an interview training class. I was coached to talk fast and be direct by the recruiter. I was asked questions like "What's your biggest success?", "What's your biggest failure?", " What would you change about our products?". Most people I met with seemed more interested in typing notes on their computer than engaging in a conversation. The in-person meetings followed up with requests for documentation samples relating to the projects I talked through. The following week I returned to present my portfolio.
Communication and feedback was spotty and infrequent between visits. When I was contacted, I was repeatedly assured that they were very much still interested in me. Well over a month and a half after my last visit, I was asked to return one more time for an hour long working session with the team where we would solve a real-world problem for one of their products.
When we completed our session I was told everything went very well and the recruiter would be in touch. During this visit I was informed that they were planning on making an offer. Two weeks later I had not heard anything about my last visit so I contacted the recruiter. The recruiter replied with a rather informal email stating "We've selected another candidate".
In hindsight I believe the haphazard nature of the interview process and poor communication probably reflects the nature of the work environment so it's probably for the best that it didn't work out. That said, I would feel a lot better if I had been given an explanation for why they didn't make an offer considering the amount of time and effort that went into the process on both our ends. If I didn't make the effort to reach out I'm fairly certain they would have never told me they selected someone else.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview, a Presentation and a Skills Test.
More Amazon.com Senior User Experience Designer Interviews
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Software Development Engineer Intern at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 16, 2012 — 2 of 2 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2012 (took 2 weeks)
Two phone interviews, each one 45 minutes long with 15 minute break in between.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 24, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 1+ week)
I went through two phone interviews, but Amazon did not proceed to the next step. The first interview went decently well. It started off with basic Java/Object Oriented questions, and then moved to many performance related questions (Big O), such as the Big O of Java collections objects. There is also coding on a shared screen towards the end of the interview, and the interviewer would ask you to optimize the performance of your code. The second interview was similar to the first in terms of question structure. However, this interviewer had a heavy accent, so it was a bit difficult to understand some of the questions. In addition to the coding on a shared screen, this interviewer also had you give pseudocode over the phone for another exercise. After hearing that they were not going to proceed with the face to face interview in Seattle (with no reason given), I was contacted another 5 times within the next month and a half by other people recruiting full time positions for Amazon. My impression from all of this is that Amazon tries to go through a ridiculously large amount of interviewees across the entire country, and picks a very small % of them to actually hire. This part turned me away from trying for any other position.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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