I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Amazon (Santa Monica, CA) in Sep 2023
Interview
Was referred by internal employee, recruiter reached out through email, never had a phone discussion with a recruiter. Communication only through email. Recruiter sent me an assessment test before doing any interview. Assessment takes about an hour. If you pass assessment they move you to phone interview. Had a “phone” interview in which they tell you is just a phone interview with no video (but they do use a video platform called chime) I had to use my phone because I live in a city that is notorious for faulty wifi and the day of my interview wifi was going in and out. Had a lot of technical difficulties. Call dropped like 2 or 3 times. Once with a screeching blank noise. I don’t think they liked this at all. I think they wanted me to show my face as well, so just keep that in mind. In the email with the details about your upcoming interview, it will say that there will be an additional person there that is just training and is not part of the interview process. But that is dishonest information. At least it was a lie for mine. They were part of customer success and also judging you during the phone interview. If you’re interviewing for CSM AWS LA area, your phone interview could potentially be with a French person named Gabriele. Unfortunately I had a very hard time understanding anything she was saying because (to me) her accent was very thick. I did not bring this up to them because I didn’t want to offend anybody and I was already having technical problems. I did ask her to repeat herself a few times. Even after repeating I still could not understand the accent. This is just an FYI for other candidates. If you have trouble with accents it might be best to ask for a English speaker interviewer who’s 1st language is English in advance of scheduling the interview. I don’t mean this in an offensive way, but it’s crucial to be able to make out the other persons words. They also did not go over any details about the Job itself or about the company. I asked a few questions relating to the job since they had not reviewed that and it’s important to note the recruiter didn’t either. At different times during the emails I had with the recruiter- They actually sent me two different job postings that they said I was being interviewed for. Eventually I realized it was a CSM for aws- role for dog food. So def ask for details about the role!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why didn’t anyone else in your company do the project or work example (from 1st initial interview question) that you did instead? Initial question was- tell us a time you did something out of your work scope They will give you a “problem solving” question in which they present a scenario and you have to come up with a solution.
Interview process is lengthy. Starts with a phone interview. Recruiter can be very helpful in the process. The last leg of the interview is a four hour loop. Each hour with different interviewees. They will have a amazon leadership principle and they will ask behavioral questions in relation to that. Don’t repeat stories
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a situation that was full of ambiguity.
Terrible, they said I would be swapped between managers for the first 8 months. No thank you. Total disrespect for my time and the team members involved. Bullet dodged thankfully.
They’re asking for a lot of prep for a role that doesn’t seem to match the pay. For that kind of compensation, the interview should be simpler - maybe just a two-part process with basic questions. That’s what it feels like it’s worth
