I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (New York, NY) in Oct 2019
Interview
- I interviewed for a job at AWS. Spoke with recruiter, then a 45 min interview with hiring manager which I thought I nailed. I was then asked to complete a writing sample, based on a time I was innovative. Was brought in for the Loop interview to meet with 6 people! and a lunch buddy, and left feeling like I did well, but didn't nail it. I didn't get an offer. I was bummed, but I got a sense that everyone there was working to the bone and very stressed. Smart people but stressed.
- The recruiting process was so seamless. They really prep you well. They basically hand feed you what you should prep and obviously use the STAR format. Why can't every company use this model! It has spoiled me for other opportunities I have!
- I researched Interview questions for AWS and found this guy on Youtube: Dan Croitor. I have NO affiliation to him, but there is a video that has top 35 questions asked in an interview and any question I was asked was on that video. It was super helpful and he was my best resource. Some of the questions were verbatim- so please prep answer for these.
- Have multiple examples of successes pertaining to the Leadership Principles (LP). And I mean MULTIPLE. Here is one area in which I failed. I prepped 2 answers for each LP as I thought each person was going to cover a different LP. Well I felt I was asked the same question over and over again- Name a time you had to act without a lot of data and name a time you took a risk. I went to the well on my two main examples, which towards the end even annoyed me! I would focus on 6-7 examples of the LPS that are more prevalent to what you are interviewing for. Maybe 4-5 LPS vs all 14!
- There will be the bar raiser, not from your team, who will ask more behavioral questions. Mine was tough, but said I did a great job afterward. So....that goes to show how much power they yield when making the final decision :)
Interview questions [5]
Question 1
Name a time someone on the team was feeling excluded and what did you do to help them.
The interview process involved various steps but wasn’t too taxing. You had to meet various people and chat to them about your experience. There wasn’t a task to complete or anything so that was a blessing!
After 8 interviews they told me they were inclined to hire me but just with a lower position. They said that they would have checked if possible and if not they would have made sure to find a position for me in the company. Well, they just ghosted me
All is about OLP. You should prepare about 10 episodes and assume OLPs you might be assigned, and associate with the episodes that match to OLP. It would be better to use different episodes for each interviewer, but you can use same ones.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Please tell me an episode that you have difficult challenges but you found the solution and overcame the issue.