Just wanted to share my experience interviewing for a PMT ES role for AWS. The phone screen was with the Hiring Manager which went well. He seemed like a nice guy to work with. Very down to earth and transparent. I felt that he would be a good manager to have. He was also very open about his expectations which were daunting but I was not expecting to coast anyways. I had to submit the writing assessment a couple of days before my second round. I think the questions are the same everywhere and are about your personal experience. I was extremely busy the whole period between the two rounds and extremely sleep deprived. I wrote the assessment after midnight a couple of days before the second round in one go. I made sure there were no spelling or grammar mistakes but only Dingan knows whether it met the bar or not. I had 5 interviews for the second round. 1 - With hiring manager again - went well and the impression I got was consistent with my previous conversation with him 2 - With the Director - Young guy who either did some homework reading about me (which I doubt given how much hiring must be going on in his org) or he is just ridiculously smart. I see a bright future ahead of him in Amazon and hence joining his org would be a great opportunity to grow. 3 - With the BR - He didn't mention that he was the BR but it was obvious because he is the only one who I won't work directly with. He had tons of questions on all sorts of stuff. Very no-nonsense kind of guy and didn't give any signals about how I did. 4 - Another PM reporting to the HM. He was very critical during the interviews and very direct. I like to work with people like that because I know where they stand. Of course, this only works if he likes direct feedback which is hard to know. 5 - A PE - A very down to earth and respectful guy who went through a long list of questions, mostly behavioral except for one technical. He seemed like someone I would work with. My initial thoughts are that I did OK/Well on 1, 2 and 5 and not so well on 3 and 4. I was a little disappointed that I didn't reserve my best stories for the BR round because I realize the BR and HM have the most say. I also noticed that there were no women interviewers. I guess with Google and Meta interviewing for a pool, they can ensure there is diversity of interviewers; while Amazon interviewers are from your (potential) future team and hence have less control - so it is not really an Amazon problem but a team problem. I am a male but am sensitive to the bias that some teams have that detract women PMs (or other culture PMs) and I get demotivated. I wish there was some diversity and in retrospect should have asked the HM that. If I get an offer, I will ask about the diversity. I haven't heard back from the recruiter yet since it has only been three working days since the interviews. At this point, I am not very hopeful. I am grateful for the experience and hoping that I will get some decent feedback. I have a bunch of things going on personally this year so joining AWS is going to either get me PIP-ed or mess up the personal stuff if I am not careful lol. YOE - 8 years as PM, 12 overall #pm #product #productmanager
They have a policy of getting back to candidates within 5 working days, so it won’t take long.
Yupp, fingers crossed!
BR's job is only to lead the debrief discussion and ensure the interview panel is making the right hiring decision (are you a bar raising candidate?) based on the objective data collected across the loops. So don't worry about you not reserving your best stories for the BR's round. HM has to remain convinced that you are a strong candidate for the team/role at the end of the debrief (hope your writing sample was strong). I am a BR myself. Good luck.
I’m also interviewing for a PMT role at AWS. Could you share a bit more about the individual questions asked? You mentioned the one technical question, was that it? Any system design questions? Pricing questions? Product strategy questions? Were all questions behavioral (ie “Tell me about a time”)? TC: 🥜
Op, Did you hear back?
OP- did you hear back?
Any luck, OP?
3 working days is fine. The promise is to inform within 2 days of phone screen and five days of onsite loop.
Yes, thanks. I will hear back in a day or two. Fingers crossed.