I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Vancouver, BC) in Jun 2015
Interview
I was contacted my an Amazon recruiter offering me a SDM role in a team matching my experience. The recruiter told me that the role would be more managerial and would not require coding background. On the phone I was interviewed by another SDM who really drilled down on the details of some projects I had worked with. I was able to answer those at least satisfactory but at the end of the call there were some coding questions that I did not know. Overall I felt like the interview was more about coding background than managerial experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you find and return the middle entry from a list of records?
Phone screen, 5 1 hour interviews for loop
Each hour was dedicated to 2 LPs. System design was more collaborative than i anticipated which was a pleasant surprise. The phone screen mostly focused on my previous experiences
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard LP based scenarios, system design was actual system the team owns
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Tokyo) in Feb 2026
Interview
The interview process is straightforward but intense.
First interview was with another Software Dev Manager in the same team. After that the famous loop interview where I had to take 5 interviews in a row over two days ( using paid holidays at work ). Recruiter gave a lot of information about possible questions and helped with materials. However, I had to use same stories few times as the different interviewers asked same questions few times.
Everything is okay, I had a good time during the interviews and it was a good exercise. However, I simply do not understand why they have to call to reject? I am not a customer to be obsessed with. A straight cut rejection via email works better than taking time out of my busy schedule.
If they used this time to share some feedback, that would be useful. If they do not share any reason why I have to continue formal small talk just to get the rejection on my face?
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A time you were driving toward a goal and realized more than halfway in that it may not be the best goal.
Had 1 round of System design interview. I thought the interview went ok, if not bad, it went decently well. Received a rejection response, while asking to apply 6 months later.
