Stressed about AMZN interview
Hi All, I am stressing over this upcoming Amzn interview because I don't have any exciting stories to tell for this LP part. I have 6yrs experience and never kept records of what happened day to day in my past so I have nothing to say except oh I fixed some bugs and wrote software per the spec. Any advice on how to pass this part for someone who doesn't have cool war stories to tell ?
Why do you want to go to Amazon?? Haven’t you read any of the horror stories? Besides if you have 6 years of experience then dont sweat it they will ask a scenario and it would come naturally, 6 years as SDE is a lot of time to cover all of their leadership principles without having to exclusively prepare for them
I'm going to AMZN because MSFT, Google, FB, haven't moved on my application yet. I think AMZN is better than where I am now.
Well DM if you are interested in and find any roles at LinkedIn.
Step 1: understand in depth end to end business flow for your system Step 2: find out all the instances where your (or ur team)work improved the bussiness and how. Make sure you drove that solution(atleast in ur head) Step3: express the impact solution made or how it failed and lessons learned Step4: if you dont think till step3 u have anything impactful, then assum you are working in your neighbor team and start from step 1, repeat
Use a google doc. Right out all the projects you worked on. Then for each lp choose the projects and try to make them fit. Will help immensely. 2 example per lp
Write*
Lie like everyone else? Embellish your story. LP are the stupidest goddamn thing I’ve ever come across. I spewed absolute nonsense for my LP and still got an offer. You’ll be fine. Just go through them quickly enough to get some time for the coding question if they ask Lp first. But my two cents? Just use amazon as practice, once I had a counteroffer the recruiter was the rudest person i had met, they think that amazon is such an amazing company that I would accept their offer (which was 40% less than the counteroffer I had) and be happy to do it. The interviews were all absolute red flags for me. So be careful about joining.
What was your Amazon offer (and level), and what was the other company's offer (and equivalent level)?
I got entry level equivalent at both companies (2 years exp + masters). Amazon L4 at 170, other company 240ish. (In Canada btw). Honestly I didn’t believe everyone’s bashing of amazon prior to interviewing with them, but I really do think there is an unhealthy focus on LP. My recruiter had straight up told me that LP is more important than the technical portions. And 2 LP every interview is kinda ridiculous. Thankfully I actually knew my shit and could talk about it well enough, but at one point it does feel like what you’re saying is just for the sake of saying it. You try to align your experiences to LP, but doing it 8-10 times in a row with different experiences is very unrealistic to expect.
Hey there, its completely alright. Don't fret, I've done 100+ SDE interviews at Amazon, ranging from L4 to L6. So with that, let me get to the reality. Don't BS on your LPs, it's easy to figure out when we go deeper into the situation you've mentioned. I'm sure with 6 years of experience you've dealt with a lot and we value that. That's still the knowledge/experience/wisdom/learnings you are offering to us. But worst case scenario let's say that you totally butcher the LPs, functional is whete you have to shine. Honestly in my rounds I dedicate a significant amount of time for coding than anything else. As others mentioned here, there could be good storytellers and without enough vetting from the interviewer they might get through as a good answer for those LP questions. But as long you are technically competent for the role you are interviewing for I'm a happy camper. The higher level you interview for, the more detailed the LP probes get, so let's say that you don't fo well at LPs bur you ace the coding/design, the worst possible that can happen is a downlevel. Now I can't guarantee this across amazon but any good team should not lose out on technically competent candidate After all we are a tech company. So don't worry, stay calm and give us your best shot! I sincerely wish you the best and hope you make it. DM for any other general advice I can provide.
Awesome thanks for the tips. Feeling a little better about it all now :)
Just use one LP to explain the other until they tell you to stop.
If you are not confident about attending the interview how could you be confident while working?
Because while working I have documentation, and other resources to reference to find a solution. I've never found Interview to equal real working scenario. I mean unless they're going to grill me daily on leadership principles I dont know then that may be an issue..
If you do not know, they apply leadership principles every day every where.
Practice LP like crazy. I recommend you use lpprep.com to practice recently ask LP questions.
Awesome going to check out that site thanks!
Keep practicing to be a better liar, use your team mate / senior project work as an example. Agreed on the risk of being found out but you don't have a choice. what level are you being interviewed for? I am guessing it's SDE2??