I applied online. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Mar 2011
Interview
I had three phone interviews from different engineers. The first part of the interview consisted in questions about my past projects. These questions are quite open and aim to know not only the technical part, but also the work approach, the issues with other collaborators and partners.
The second part of the interviews was technical, with algorithmic problems or design and implementation problems (C++ in my case). Finally, some more minutes were allocated for questions.
For the feedback I had to wait just three days for the first and second interview, while for the third (negative) I had to wait 10 days.
Interviewers are very nice and let you talk a lot. If you are in trouble with a problem they try to give you some hints. I actually almost panicked during the second interview because I was feeling that my design was not good enough. The interviewer wisely let me think through and I even passed that interview step.
I was told that people don't follow any dress code and that the environment is very challenging.
As an engineer you are responsible for the design and implementation and everything is up to you. This means that besides the people that talk with the clients, you (and your team) will be the only responsible for that product.
Also, I was given only a vague answer to my question about the work organization (single/multi task, team size, number of meetings per week, etc) because the engineer said that they are part of the company strategy.
Interview questions [5]
Question 1
Write a function that allows to convert a string to the corresponding number (i.e. implement the atoi() C function)
Given a (potentially large) array of integers, all but one repeating an even number of times, how would you find the one repeating an odd number of times in an efficient way?
eg [1 2 3 3 2 2 1 4 2] should return 4
Write a C/C++ function to decode url’s string in place. The special characters to handle are:
"%20" -> " "
"%3A” -> "?"
"%3F" -> ":"
Example input: “web.com/kitten%20pic.jpg”
Expected output: “web.com/kitten pic.jpg”
How would you design a system for the generation of book indexes (i.e., you want to generate at the end of the book, a section where the words are indexed with the pages where they can be found)
Straightforward interview process with clear communication. The interviewers asked about my background, relevant experience, technical skills, and how I would handle common workplace situations. Overall, it felt professional and organized.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They asked me to walk through my previous experience and explain how it related to the responsibilities of the role.
Applied online via the company careers page. Received a reply from HR within a few weeks inviting me to an initial
screening call over Teams. Process also included an online coding assessment sent as a pre-interview step.
Communication from HR was professional, prompt, and friendly throughout the scheduling stage.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard background and motivation questions — what attracted me to the company, and a walk-through of recent
OA contained 2 coding questions and then followed by a multiple choice question on behavioral where they emphasized a lot on their leadership rules which you can find on their website
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is customer obsession and how do you apply it
