I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Austin, TX) in Aug 2014
Interview
Initial Communication - One of their technical recruiters messaged me on LinkedIn expressing an interest in my skills. I ignored it. A couple months went by, and I decided looking for other career opportunities would be a good thing. I applied online for their Austin, TX positions. I also found a few of their technical recruiters on LinkedIn and messaged them.
I got a phone call from one of their technical recruiters. She was really nice and excited to talk to me. There were a couple questions about my work experience mostly to make sure that I was who I claimed I was on paper. The next step was a timed test online that they would record in real time. She also gave me a small document that was prep for the test listing various topics that the test would include. She also claimed 'do not exceed one hour' on the timed test.
To prepare for the test, I recommend googling for Amazon Test questions. They won't be exact, but you'll get in the habit of answering questions fast. The test was composed of three questions. 1) Write a series of classes for a graphics API. 2) Implement a breadth first traversal of some tree. 3) Implement a method for the fibonacci sequence.
Then a couple phone calls and email exchanges. "You Passed, we love you!". The next step is an onsite interview that lasts 2-4 hours.
The onsite interview consisted of meeting with pairs of people. One of them was the lead interviewer, the other was someone who had started within the last six months and was there more to take notes. The first group seemed unhappy to be there at all. It didn't matter what I said. It was straight to the white board for more technical tests. This group asked questions about implementing a bit map editor. They purposely would ask vague questions with the expectation that you will ask them questions to figure out what they are really wanting answered. They would ask questions about big O notation. They would ask questions about memory usage. The next group was similar.
I asked each of the groups if they would be my actual coworkers. The answer was no across the board. I did want to meet whom I would actually be working with. The people I met in the interview seemed like they didn't want to be there. Toward the end of one of the groups, I thought of a better implementation to a question I answered. They responded, "We're out of time". They definitely had the attitude of "People apply here everyday, Anyone is replaceable, No one is unique"
I'm guessing I didn't pass their in-person technical test, but I wasn't too crazy about working with them either.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
For a bitmap editor, given an x,y location and a color, write a series of methods for a Fill operation like the paint bucket, except only change the color of the outer boundary of what would be filled.
Recruiter screen, online assessment, technical interviews, and behavioral rounds focused heavily on Amazon Leadership Principles. The process was structured, with a strong emphasis on problem-solving, coding skills, and examples demonstrating impact and ownership.
Recruiter screen, followed by an online coding assessment and then a technical phone interview. The final round was a virtual onsite loop with multiple interviews covering data structures, system design, debugging, and Amazon Leadership Principles. The technical questions were practical but time-constrained, and the behavioural questions required specific examples using the STAR format.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a scalable URL shortening service and explain how you would handle high read traffic, collisions, database schema, expiration, and basic monitoring.
That moment when the interviewer asked about finding indices in an array for a target sum was wild — I had just tackled something identical while prepping on PracHub. The interview included a technical round with another question about designing an in-memory LRU cache and a behavioral question about meeting tight deadlines. After a smooth discussion, I was told I'd received an offer, which I happily accepted. Overall, the process felt pretty straightforward and not overly challenging.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Given an array of integers return the indices of two numbers summing to a target