AWS interview preparation
How does Aws interview structure look like? Difficulty level?
5 interviews. Coding is easy to medium level, but it is not the hardest part. Read the LPs carefully, sell yourself with examples, because if you don't, you will be NOT inclined. Yes, many many people are rejected because of behavioral questions. Many, many. Also coding is easy, but it is easy for other candidates as well, so expect to solve it quick and clean, or you will be NOT inclined AS WELL. Overall, Amazon's interview is not trying to test limit of your IQ, nor they are aiming at absolutely rockstars. But it is not EASY, because there is a lot of trickiness in the process. A lot of loops I have involved, the technical aspects of the candidate is fine, but still get rejected because not all 5 people in the loop seems to agree, and their reasons of rejection are very different. Now I come to believe that interview is designed to eliminate absolute false positives, but beyond that, it is essentially a lottery.
You should spend the time to write and review 2-3 examples of you exhibiting each leadership principle. Focus on being able to tell the story concisely and hitting all the key points. Be prepared for them to ask questions that dig deep into the experience (don’t bullshit in other words).
Be genuine. Frame all answers in light of the LP. We expect that. And don't bullshit.
What if you genuinely don't have an example at the ready for a question - like "Tell me about a time you had to work on a project with unclear responsibilities" Can't say that's ever happened to me in my entire career. Is it okay to say "that's never happened to me but if it did this is how I'd handle it?"
I was asked, what are your favorite LPs? :|
Very easy , just look at the leadership principles and subtly incorporate those in your answers/experiences
I wonder why Amazon hiring quality is so low...
I personally do not think Amazon's hiring bar is low. I interviewed at AWS two days ago and the questions were simple but they became challenging really really fast if they want you to scale your solution across multiple machines. I would also argue that Amazon engineers are just as good as any top tech companies engineers otherwise you wouldn't see Amazon so far ahead in the league. Googlers and others have created an inflated perception about smartness but the truth is Google cloud is in the shitter and Amazon is innovating way more faster than Google. The world will pass you very quickly if you are busy eating free food and chilling at your desk.