I am interested in findind out about hiring process for a technical position at Amazon? number of rounds interviews, complexity. How do manager evaluates you and all that. Do they always make you do write scripts in lab or build a server. I heard they interview process is very rigorous and stuff. technically I am ok but some time i screw interviews and my understanding is that you will have one shot at applying Amazon.
Lol wut
The actual process is more or less standardized, but the specifics and hiring bar are highly variable because teams and orgs hire for themselves (there’s no company-wide intake and review process in place). Typically, for an industry hire SDE, you’ll have a recruiter call (informational; gauging interest), 1-2 phone screens, and an on-site loop with 4-6 people who will primarily be SDEs themselves, plus a hiring manger or two (SDM, usually a former SDE) and a bar raiser (should also be either an SDM or SDE). Amazon stopped doing lunch interviews a few years ago; they do the “lunch buddy” (no feedback) thing now. My org works with devices of all sorts (including low power/embedded) and robotics and rarely hires below SDE2, so we tend to run candidates through design scenarios revolving around maintaining autonomy and data integrity at scale and with unreliable networking, and we have some really senior guys who like to test candidates’ understanding of bitwise operations, but there are plenty of teams who may well only test you on leadership principles (Amazon’s version of “culture fit”) and very basic CS concepts. Outcomes range from “offer” to “no offer; recycle” to do “no offer; do not recycle.” The first is obvious, the second means you’re not a good fit for that particular team or role but could match to another team or role (and are eligible to interview as such immediately), and the third means you wait 6-12 months at a minimum before interviewing again for ANY team at the company. “Do not recycle” is usually a result of scoring really poorly on the LPs, or a really bad all-around performance.
Since the candidate can leave the team immediately, you hire for the company not the team. The bar raiser is there to insure it
I was asked to apply after 6 months for Applied Scientist position. There were 5 onsite rounds. I think I did well in 3 ML rounds but did bad in 2 coding rounds. So I think no recycle need not be after doing really poorly.
Thanks for the details.
I just went through the process (phone screening, online screening and a 6 round on site). Overall it was pretty easy. They asking some basic CS questions (look at Interview Cake) for some ideas that you work through in whatever language (heck even psuedo code). The hardest part is the usually one round of interviews is an architect or bar raiser and they'll tear apart your solution trying to get you to come up with a more scalable solution. If you know some basic CS structures and some core AWS technologies (and how to use them) you should be fine.
If the candidate can't write any code but pseudo code, I doubt it's a hire. AWS knowledge is not mandatory
I'm assuming you're talking about interviewing for a SDE position. The standard interview consists of the typical phone screen and/or online assessments. Onsite is 4 or more rounds with whiteboarding. There will be a mix of system design, algorithms, and behavioral (big emphasis on leadership). And you definitely have more than 1 shot at applying. If you fail without totally bombing, you can try again in 6 months.