Horrible interview Experience Amazon
Data Engineer YOE:3 TC:110k, Chicago I went to a data engineering hiring event on Friday in New York. There were 4 rounds(all general data modeling, SQL, optimization based) + some LPs. But I felt couple of the interviewers were quite under prepared, they kept asking random questions, not knowing what they were expecting out of the questions. Or maybe, I wasn't able to explain them properly, I don't know. It was a weird experience. Anyway, my question to the blinders is how do you deal with an interviewer who seems disinterested or distracted? I tried to engage with interviewer by asking questions but I just got short replies and he was consistently working on his laptop. What should one do then ?
You’ll get a survey soon. Be as upfront about your experience as you can. These surveys are read and taken very seriously.
Amazon interviewer take note during interview. Not sure if that want you are referring to
This. Even though it’s advisable to warn candidate beforehand and use pen and paper
I always tell the candidate that I'm gonna take notes.
Usually when I see this type of interviewer, I think they were selected on the interview panel and don't want to be there. So just finish the questions as fast as possible, and talk about broader decisions vs smaller details. I had a interviewer like this at FB, we finished all 3 of his questions in 30 of the allotted 60 minutes. I asked a couple of questions, then excused myself as having a "emergency meeting" to attend for work. Got offers after, so the interviewer was probably happy that he got 20 min back of his day.
"Amazon is a data driven company therefore you may notice interviews are typing on their laptops. Be advised, this doesnt mean they arent paying attention, rather they are gathering notes and data points about your experiences and evaluating if you are a fit." ~5 minutes for intro, etc. ~30 minutes for questions Usually 2-4 questions with a few follow up questions to gauge deep dive, etc. ~10 minutes Q&A about the team, org, projects/applications, interviewer experience, etc. The questions were probably based around LPs so usually not as random as you think. They probe and normally ask follow up questions. The way you describe "maybe i wasnt able to explain it right" tends to indicate you were being high level and not really providing the details/answers the team wanted. But you may be right and they were voluntold to interview and just didnt care. Either way let RHMD know your thoughts. HR reads the notes but there is a strong correlation between outcome vote and interview happiness votes in the survey.
You should use Pattern Disruption..like how we do in sales . Capture their imagination in first 30 secs .
Drop your pants and see if that gets his attention