Amazon Lab126 Software Development Engineer II interview questions

Submitted my resume online. Recruiter contacted me a day or two later for a phone interview the next week on a Tuesday. After the first phone interview, scheduled a second one for Thursday. Then scheduled an onsite for the following Wednesday (actually after an intervening holiday week). I knew by Friday that they planned to make an offer and received it on Monday. The whole process was lightning fast. The interview was your standard 5 hour process, with lunch, except that lunch was served in the interview meeting room and half of the time slot was used for eating and half for conducting another interview so either you don't finish your lunch, or you feel like you need to scarf down the food. I'd prefer an actual break for lunch. There were six interviewers, four "regular" interviewers, plus one slot with the second-tier manager and one with a principal engineer. I didn't find the interview questions to be extraordinarily difficult. Went into some detail about threading, locking, deadlock avoidance, priority inversion with one interviewer, and tree traversal and optimization with another. Seemed pretty standard, but maybe that's because these are particular interests of mine. Other interviewers focused more on design. Takeaway: Didn't like how lunch was conducted. Very much liked meeting with the principal engineer and getting a chance to speak with someone who would act as a mentor. This second point made a big difference for me. Also, the recruiter was scheduled for a short slot which I thought was odd. He asked about my current salary and benefits. It took me by surprise and I answered his questions, but in hindsight, I did not appreciate this. This sort of thing should be done _after_ the interviews and after they have signaled their intent to make an offer, not before.