Amazon Bar Raiser
It was kind of brutal. Serious cultural fit drilling with follow up questions for which I had to recall specific details of things that had happened 6 months to a year ago. All that was followed by a LeetCode HARD question. After suggesting one way to go about it, I realized that there is a much much easier way to do it and suggested that instead. The bar raiser wanted me do it the hard way and when I couldn’t handle an edge case he said, “it’s easy... just do this ” 😆 It was humbling.
Lol didn’t you have rehearsed answers for culture fit? I mean does anyone really answer those BS questions from personal experience?
nope its all bull crap. Got an offer from amazon for L6 and I lied about all my experiences lol. How did u handle this ? Have you ever been in a situation ? lol. Decided to go with Microsoft instead. I think amazon is looking for trained liers lol. Wasnt impressed one bit lol
lol yeah OP is HR
Level?
It was a couple of days ago, so no feedback yet. Applying for SDE3. I was answering the questions truthfully. Some of them felt loaded and presumed some sort of failure.
SDE3? What is your YOE?
~9ish. Do you think SDE3 is too ambitious? Anything else would basically be a pay cut...
YOE 8 (6 in HW industry) I got SDE 1 offer , feedback was I didn't demonstrate leadership but culturable . 😣😭
All the LP questions are just BS you can rehearse. Amazon is less on tech, more on behavioral, which is why it's easier to pass vs others
Good observation and very true on the allocation of time for behavioral questions, most people who have offers from G or FB do not join Amazon unless it’s a level up which means the salary will usually be more. Anyway, I think being the “smartest” hire does not mean one will be successful. Tenured interviewers will catch the “rehearse” BS. I’ve personally rejected some decent candidates who I felt had rehearsed and I wasn’t convinced with some of the follow up answers. I’m just saying, BS’ing your way in you’ll be found out and not worth it. This isn’t an Amazon specific advice, You must do enough research about company culture before you join one. Besides Amazon for the most part does a team specific hire, so the team needs to like You.
Bar raisers are usually good smart talkers and fast thinkers rather than technical gurus. These guys understand any kind of unfamiliar area really quickly and have good instinct. Of course exceptionally good at detecting rehersed BS. If you are technically really good and have your own real stories BR round can be even easier than the other rounds.
Lucky you. Did you get an offer?