I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Mar 2021
Interview
A week after applying to the position, I received an automated e-mail saying that I was invited for a phone interview. This automated e-mail had no information about the interview process, or any information in general.
I specifically e-mailed the recruiter that had the contact information in the invitation, and asked for the content of the first interview. I was told that the first interview would be about the Leadership Principles and I should focus on preparing for those.
Even though I explicitly asked the content of the first interview, and was told that it would be based on the Leadership principles; they did a technical interview with me. The interviewer even insisted that the information I had about the process is wrong.
So to sum up; I was never directly contacted by a recruiter, I was given completely wrong information about the process when I asked, and my interviewer had no clue about the hiring process and did a technical interview even though I was expecting a behavioral interview.
I was not even contacted after the interview, and they didn't even reply to the email I sent after the interview in order to ask for clarifications. They really do not consider the applicants as human beings that spend a lot of their free time preparing for this, and they treat them like garbage.
I now see that all the similar reviews of Amazon's interview process in Glassdoor are incredibly accurate; and I will never lose time with this company ever again.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The interviewer spent most of the time on computer networking questions, even though the position I applied to is not strongly correlated with networking knowledge.
The recruitment process consisted of several stages:
Online coding – a one-hour session focused on solving programming problems and demonstrating practical coding skills.
Technical meeting – a two-hour in-depth discussion covering system design, problem-solving approach, and technical knowledge relevant to the role.
Soft skills meeting – a 90-minute conversation assessing communication skills, teamwork, and overall cultural fit.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
describe your current project, most interesting bug and feature.
the most important thing you are proud of.
slide-window algorithm, string parser
The technical round focused on a DSA problem about finding the closest points to the origin, where I was asked to explore multiple approaches like sorting, heaps, and quickselect. It felt straightforward, and I was ready for it thanks to the time I spent on PracHub brushing up on similar questions. The interview also included a behavioral section, but overall, I found the process to be very easy. Happy to say I received an offer, which I gladly accepted!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
K Closest Points to Origin - given an array of points on the 2D plane and an integer k, return the k closest points to the origin (0,0). Walk through sort-by-distance O(n log n), heap-based O(n log k), and quickselect O(n) average; discuss when to prefer each based on the relationship between n and k.
Tough interview.
The Process: Automated Online Assessment (OA) with 2 coding questions and a system simulation, followed by a 4-round virtual Loop. Every single round started with 20 minutes of intense, behavioral behavioral questions diving into Amazon's Leadership Principles, followed by 25 minutes of technical coding or system design.
Amazon interviews are a test of mental endurance because you have to switch from deep behavioral storytelling straight into complex coding which can be so difficult. I used Apex Interviewer to practice the cognitive context switch. Running through their live-coding workspace helped me ensure my technical communication and architectural structures remained sharp and automatic, even after spending the first half of the interview defending my past project metrics. I fed the practice AI questions I extracted from glassdoor and gothamloop.
In the end, the offer was way lower than I hoped.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design the backend inventory tracking and placement service for a global fulfillment network, ensuring strict transactional consistency across multiple regional warehouses during peak shopping events.