Had what I would call an interesting experience. I was interviewing for what I thought was a senior level position with one of the devices teams as the recruiter told me I would be and as I explicitly told them that I was only interested in certain teams at Amazon (Note the recruiter reached out to me with a LinkedIn message saying I would have the opportunity to work on devices at Amazon). Instead, I got interviewed by an AWS team, stuff that is certainly interesting to some but not interesting to me really at all. I mentioned it to each interviewer, but we went through the interview anyway, even though I would likely not accept an offer for such a position. So, here is what went down.
Round 1:
- Leadership Principles questions (working with difficult coworker, follow-ups on top of follow-up)
- Variation of https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-window-subsequence (premium)
Round 2:
- More Leadership Principles questions (A time had to convince coworkers)
- https://leetcode.com/problems/rearrange-string-k-distance-apart (premium)
Round 3: [System Design]
- More Leadership Principles questions, forgot them
- Design an Amazon Map System
Round 4:
- Leadership Principles questions
- Variation of https://leetcode.com/problems/shortest-distance-from-all-buildings (premium)
Result:
The recruiter called a day later and offered a position as SDE II, but I told them I was not interested in AWS. The recruiter said they were sorry about this situation and also said all Amazon teams interviews are similar ETC and I could eventually change teams (they said some other things as well but I am forgetting now); but I was just upset about the whole process and as I had other pendding options with companies (including my current company) who have their stuff together more, I turned them down.
In the end, it was a waste of time. (Nothing at all against the AWS team I interviewed with, just with the recruiter and Amazon’s hiring organization in general and their treatment of recruits, not very good.)