I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Sep 2019
Interview
A phone interview with HR, a phone interview with the hiring manager, a day of on-site interviews.
Three of the on-sites were with people I would be working with in various capacities; these went well, I think, and the interviewers used the leadership principles thoughtfully, for the most part.
The other three on-sites were strange. One had not even looked at my resume, and was not nearly as smart as he thought he was. Another was with someone new to interviewing, who just asked leadership principles questions by rote. Another parroted the principles as if he were in a cult.
The guy who took me to lunch was himself new to Amazon, and himself was still somewhat skeptical of the principles, but still thought his own job was very interesting, and that it was a good place to work.
The three strange interviews were weird enough that I wasn't going to take the position unless it was my only offer.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (London, England) in Aug 2020
Interview
Initial telephone interview went well, followed by 'The Loop', a series of 5 competency based interviews with a wide range of people. Three of them asked essentially the same questions, and two were so keen to cut me off mid-flow that I never felt I had answered these two as well as I would have liked.
Like many companies, they're hiring for what you've done, not what you have the potential to do, which I find frustrating.
I was also ensure that I'd have a result within five working days, telling me if I had the role or not, and with feedback. 15 days later, there has been no update or result.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a risk that you've taken in your professional life.
I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 2+ months. I interviewed at Amazon (London, England) in Oct 2018
Interview
The Amazon process was rather inefficient to start, but picked up speed once the application began to progress through the system.
Once my CV was shortlisted, I was asked to answer 10 technical questions via email. These questions covered various security topics, ranging from infrastructure design, regulatory, DDoS mitigation and recovery planning.
I then proceeded to a 1:1 interview with the hiring manager. This person set a very good impression of Amazon compared to my interactions with Recruiting and their pro forma email template interactions prior to this meeting. Technical questions were asked although most of these were covered off organically during the conversation. Two AWS leadership principles questions surrounding behavior were asked at this stage.
After this, I was given an assignment to develop a solution that would convert an enterprise infrastructure into AWS. This was around 8 pages and asked to both demonstrate knowledge of AWS but also the business benefits of the platform.
After this assignment was submitted, I then presented this solution to two AWS consultants. This was fairly disorganized, and despite the brief including business benefits, all questions solely referred to the AWS product line. No behavioral questions were asked at this stage.
Finally, I was invited to a full day on-site meeting where I met 4 different AWS employees and was interviewed on the behavioral components of the Amazon leadership principals. I walked a line between rote memorization of scenarios for each question in the STAR format and injecting a bit of humility into the answers to ensure it didn't sound like I was regurgitating the answers.
