Amazon PM interview
Have an initial phone screen in couple of days, any advice on what I prep for and focus on, apart from the Amazon leadership principles
It sounds crazy. Its not super clear what the interviewer is looking for in phone interviews. They ask open ended questions, act irritated if you as clarifications and then ask you to continue talking. Amazon is worst!!!?
What kind of open ended questions did they ask, was it related to a case study or situational question or just stuff from your resume
The kind of open ended question is - design an elevator system. Now you will think it's close ended question. But what they are actually expecting is - ask a ton of clarifying questions. Like - who is the audience, what is it's purpose, what problem are we solving before answering this. Now the Amazon interviewer may actually act like they are bored and want you to move forward quickly Dont. Bore them with a ton of clarifying questions. Here they are not really interested in answers. They want to know how you think. So get more context. Enumerate all the pivots for the design. Then give an answer. Read the book decode and conquer. It will give more context. Good luck.
How did the interview go?
I thought it was ok, pretty similar experience to what folks stated above, unsure what they were looking for, got rejected but no feedback given. Their policy is to not provide any feedback which is pretty strange
Sorry to hear that. Do you mind sharing what was asked?
Prepare scenarios in STAR format that fit the leadership principles Situation Task Action Result They all don’t need to be amazing results. In fact if they all were amazing results it’s gonna look bad. Just keep majority as good result. Also don’t exaggerate unless you feel it’s what the interviewer is looking for based on questioning.
Correct. But few of the interviewers are either b grade or don't understand STAR format. It totally depends on your luck and interviewer's attitude.
Thank you for the tip, should I expect case study and estimation questions similar to Google?