Status: 4-8 yoe, BS, Top University in Japan
Position: SDE II/III at Amazon (Level would be decided based on interview results)
Location: Tokyo
Date: January, 2020

1. Onsite Screening
   It is pretty strange, but it is onsite screening, since I was invisted to an event and after that they do screening for those who attended. All questions were designed to be very short, concise, I think they just want to cover as much as possible for screening. Around 15 minutes each.

• 1 question about basic data structure (Similar to HashTable vs Binary Tree)
• 3 behaviors
• 1 coding (Related to sorting)
• 1 OO design (Simple version of famous question)
  No problem and passed.

2. Onsite (Cancelled)

• I moved on to schedule the onsite, since I want to maximize the preparation time, I made it as late as I could. That strategy didn't work out so well since I was informed that the position has been filled, so my onsite would be cancelled.
• The single thing I was not so happy with was that the recruiter didn't give me a warning at all. Recruiters at other companies I applied always help me to understand the headcount situation to help me make the right decision about interview schedule. Amazon wasn't my first priority anyway, so I was probably the root cause (not pushing or asking).

3. Thoughts
   I have no regret, since I already have one good offer and an upcoming onsite (passed phone already) at Google in a few weeks (I'd like to share that later). I just want to share some of the things I observe about Amazon interview process.

• Leadership Principles are highly valued, and I was shocked when the recruiter told me it would make up 50% of the decision making. OMG, 50%. This is very different from my first time interviewed at Amazon years ago as 1 yoe engineer (Passed, but failed H1B lottery :(, and declined to go to UK as alternative, so stay in Japan). Back then, I wasn't told LP would be that important, and wasn't asked so many questions regarding that. I really like a post I saw somewhere in Stackoverflow stated something like Amazon has 14 principles, which can be converted to one: "Work Overtime" :). Not sure how much it is correct, but I believe it is.
• The elevator inside one of Amazon building I visited at Meguro has "Please keep quite" inside the door. So make sure you finish your joke before entering the elevator if you work or plan to work there. I don't know if it is the same for other buildings.
• All Amazonians in Japan I have chance to know personally or when visiting Amazon recently are very professional, hard-working, tense, ... Probably they are the people who can last there. Just a feeling.

After I finished Google onsite, regardless of the results, I will write a detailed post about how I prepared.

Best luck to everyone who is looking for a change!