Hi, I know there are quite a few posts here asking something similar but I’m at a bit of a loss. Is there a big difference between the SDE interview process at AWS vs Amazon? From what I’ve gathered AWS’ process looks something like this:
-
phone screen
-
phone interview
-
virtual 5-6x interviews
Is there no online assessment prior to the phone screen like an Amazon interview?
The position I’d like to apply for is a Front End Developer role. What kind of prep would I need for each of those stages? Will I be asked about practical front end knowledge? Data structures/algorithm/leetcode style knowledge? Is there a bare minimum I should know architecture wise (I don’t have AWS experience but could at least learn some of the basics of how it fits in)?
Aside that I’ve reviewed the leadership principles/STAR and prepped answers regarding my experiences through that lens.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and potentially providing me feedback.
Hey ladies and Gents, I hope you are having a great weekend...
Next Wednesday, I have a phone interview with AWS for an early start 2022 SA role ( for newly grads and early career pros ) I've passed the online assessment, and I've been doing to reading and research on the Leader Principles and the STAR method.
the thing is I don't have much experience to create stories to impress the interviewer and I don't want to B.S as well.
please any tips are welcome <3
Videos
Hello there!
I recently scored an interview as a Solutions Architect Associate with one of the offices in Europe. I'm extremely stoked for the opportunity and consideration. My only issue is that I'm not certified yet, although I'm grinding through Adrian Cantrill's course and have what I believe to be a reasonable grasp on how the console functions and theories behind the systems (Obviously I have a lot more to learn).
I really would like to know what I should be expecting and particular areas I should focus my studies/refresh on. Any and all tips/ stories are absolutely welcome.
I also just want to say thank you to all of you in this community, everyone has been so friendly and helpful with all of my questions. I really appreciate it.
Hey everyone,
I wanted to share my experience and see if anyone else has gone through something similar. I was recently approached to interview for an AWS data center role as a temporary contractor. After the interview, I was excited to hear that I was recommended for a permanen position. However, things took a turn when I found out I’d have to go through the official AWS interview process, which includes five separate interviews, each lasting an hour, spread over two days. I was expecting the usual 3-45 min interviews for a tech role, not this extensive process! It feels overwhelming, and honestly, it’s exhausting to find this out only two days before my interview that it went from 3 to now 5.
To top it off, I’m left wondering if this position will even be available after all this or if I’ll be stuck in a holding queue for months before I can actually start working. Will I be ghosted after putting in all this work once again ? This has been my ongoing experience the past year. I was excited once I found out that I would be working for Google only to be in a holding queue. I was excited to find out AWS wanted me permanently only to then learn two days before the interview I’m doing five interviews Four hours one day and one hour on the next.
What is going on with the workforce in America? Is this standard now? Has anyone else experienced something similar? I’d love to hear your thoughts and any advice you might have.
Thanks!
Update 1: On Monday the day of the interview, the first interview was canceled. He advised that his interview was not supposed to be scheduled with me and apologized for taking away my valued time. I appreciated this, and I used that time to continue discussing my scenarios and prepare for the remaining four interviews that I would be completing that day Today is Friday, and I received a call around 6 PM informing me that I will be extended an offer as a Network Deploy Technician L4. I was told that I will receive an offer letter in the coming days, along with another phone call from a recruiter who will go over that offer letter with me. I will provide another update in about three months, as requested.
Total interviews = 5
w/AWS -> 4 w/Lorien Staffing -> 1
I applied for a two roles at AWS, when contacted by the recruiter for first steps, there was no indication for which role I was interviewing for. When following up to clarify I never heard back and was given times to select from. I did not know the team until my meeting with the hiring manager.
Everything went well with the hiring manager and I made it to final rounds of interviews. We had a prep call with a recruiter who said if your recruiter hasn’t brought up compensation to contact them. Of course mine again is impossible to get a hold of. I understand it’s a massive company but I was assigned three people who all seemed very confused and to not communicate with each other.
The interview was set for 6 people at 1 hour each. The first 4 were ok but when I got to the top person on the team she gave me 15 mins and asked no questions, not one. The other interviews kept asking the same exact star question, do they not share which questions they ask from the list? At least share a list to mark off.
I got the call that I didn’t get the role, when asking for feedback I was told “not at this time” Anywho, I was very disappointed by the entire process and lack of feedback. I took off time and work and dedicated a lot to this process, I guess thats an AWS policy to not provide feedback but the whole thing left me feeling blindsided and confused. Explains why they are notorious for having a terrible culture and morale.
Wondering if anyone else ran into anything like this.
Title pretty much sums it all. A recruiter reached out to me for an L6 Sr industry value specialist role within cloud economics.
I'm fairly confident about my industry expertise however I don't necessarily work in the cloud space. My line of work often touches cloud projects, but that's not the chunk of what I do and as a result I don't have technical expertise to understand in depth details of cloud infrastructure.
In the recruiter screen, the recruiter kept telling me to emphasize my industry expertise however, when I got the prep notes, it talked a lot about knowing cloud technicalities.
I have the phone screen with the hiring manager coming up, and I've been told it's more of a functional interview. I've read up on the LP's and understand how the general loop structure works, but none of that would be relevant if I can't clear the phone screen.
Just curious if anyone is familiar with a similar role, and if they know how in depth your technical expertise must be to make it past the phone screen. Also, if the questions are functional or technical in nature, do they still need to allude to leadership principles to be considered successful answer? TIA!!!
Thought I'd give another name dump for those prospective workers out there. Interviewed recently for a role at AWS that I applied to about a month back.
Got contacted by a recruiter a week or so later, going over the typical intro questions. She mentioned I'd be taking an assessment, then interview with the hiring manager, then a rotation of about 5 other people over 5 hours. She sent me basic info on their benefits which were not actually that great. They really liked to emphasize their generic "leadership principles" and "vestment growth" as if it was anything special, encouraging me to familiarize myself with them to help with interview prep.
The assessment was multiple choice over different sections, namely my course of action in example scenarios, some behavioral trite like choosing between "I am more of a team player" or "I am detail oriented," and a technical evaluation. None of it was entirely difficult, but took me just over 90 minutes to get through the ridiculous amount of questions. Passed and got set up for the first interview.
When I joined the interview I could already tell how bad it would be when he explicitly asked me to only answer using the STAR method and to make sure I was very clear when using "I" or "we" in my responses. I initially tried to generalize some answers to my overall thought process, but was encouraged to be specific. I expressed that I have a lot of experience in a variety of situations, so my exact actions in one example are not indicative of how I'd handle everything. So I had to cherry-pick what things I could remember after years and he just had to deep-dive into every single aspect of them.
At the end of each answer, I was repeatedly asked to iterate on the overall impact I had on whatever the situation was, most of which I either already mentioned or implied. In one example, I was asked about "a time I couldn't deliver on an ask and how I handled it."
I talked about a time, somewhat recently, where I was asked to upgrade an application that hadn't been touched in 20+ years. That it was only used by 2 people in the entire company, the documentation dated back to '99 and the only person that ever managed it left in 2005. The company that created this application rebranded long ago and they don't even really handle it anymore. I stated it wasn't really feasible, if even possible, to update this, so I proposed various solutions to management that I would be happy to implement as an alternative. Was told they would discuss it amongst themselves and get back to me. I'm actually still waiting on their decision to this day, but I at least told them what I could do.
I would say this essentially answers the question, right? He kept asking what my impact was and why I haven't heard back from anyone yet. Um, because I can't control their decision or how long it takes, but I at least gave them their options?
"Don't you think just leaving this application how it is now is a security vulnerability?" Well, it has been running fine since I was in grade school, doesn't touch that much data, and I'm not going to just start making changes when it's not my call.
He didn't seem to understand the point I was making, so I said "well, let me give you a different example that I think will convey this better." As I started to go over it, he immediately interrupted me saying that it doesn't sound like what he's asking for, despite not even allowing me to actually explain anything.
It was overall a very stiff interview and did not remotely flow like a conversation. Felt as though he couldn't make any distinctions without me spoon feeding him. Maybe I could have chosen some better examples to speak on? I'm no stranger to questions like these, but this specific interview felt far too stringent for the kind of role it was. Didn't really ask for any kind of overview as it related to the role and I felt like my answers could not be understood beyond face value.
Got my rejection the next week. Already told myself I wouldn't be taking the job even if I got the offer, so not heartbroken over it. The role was listed in Seattle (I don't live there), but didn't 100% confirm if it was only on-site. Figured since there are definitely remote workers at Amazon, I'll give it a shot. Was told in my screening that it was on-site only, no WFH eligibility and no relocation assistance. Went ahead with it anyway to at least get some experience and insight on their hiring process. The hiring manager didn't even live in Washington though, so essentially the team was expected to be in office yet the boss gets a pass. Kind of glad now that I didn't waste my time further with the upcoming 5 interviews if they were all going to be like this. Not a fun endeavor.
A few months ago I applied to an IT Engineer position at Amazon, and a week or two ago I heard back. The recruiters signature was AWS, and the questions they asked me about operating systems said 'compute - Linux' like that so I'm fully assuming it's AWS.
10 days ago, including weekends, they said that they sent my resume to the hiring manager, and they will follow back around with me once they get information on what the next steps are.
So my question is basically, should I expect to hear back for sure? And does anybody with experience in this know how long it could take? I know I'm not being patient, but I've heard so much about how recruiters will just ghost you and this is a dream opportunity to me.
Thanks in advance!
I just got an email saying I’m moving on to the phone interview for the Cloud Support Engineer - Network Device position. For anyone who’s been through this, what should I expect? Do they ask LeetCode-style questions, or is it more general networking Q&A? Thank you.
Location: US
Hey everyone I’m interviewing for an internship at AWS and I have my final interview coming up and I was wondering if there’s any tips anyone would recommend on impressing the interviewer to secure the job. I’m pretty confident in my behavioral skills but I don’t really have a lot of experience in AWS (I’m surprised I passed all previous rounds) so any tips would be greatly appreciated.
For context I’m a junior studying compsci interviewing for the CSA internship
How's their interview process? Just curious..
Phone screen then 6 onsite interviews.
It’s a slog, but I had a lot of fun.
Like others have said, general process is 1 or 2 phone screens (2 for sure if you're potentially relocating) and then an in-person interview "loop" with 5-6 people. If they're on the fence, you may have an additional phone screen after the in-person loop but this isn't common. Phone screens can be a bunch of canned questions depending on who is doing your interview. If this is a technical role, just be prepared for lots of technical questions relevant to the skills/technologies outlined in the job description. It's less behavioral at this stage and more to make sure you appear to have the technical chops to do the job before they spend the money to bring you on site (if applicable).
General advice for all Amazon and AWS jobs (technical or not): Know the Leadership Principles inside and out. Have examples of how you've demonstrated each one over your career. Every question, even the technical ones, are all based around these. In person, each interviewer is assigned a couple of them (you won't know who has what) and they will be looking for answers that speak to the LPs they have. If you listen carefully to the questions, you can likely narrow down which LPs they may have, but good answers will hit on multiple. A good interviewer will only have a few questions for you, but they will probe hard and go really deep to find out how much you know. You can bullshit most (all?) of the behavioral interview if you come really prepared on the LPs and talking points for each one.
If you're interviewing as an SDE, you'll do a couple whiteboard exercises for technical stuff when you go in-person. Expect lots of CS fundamentals. If it's an SDE2 or 3, be prepared to really go into the details on solutions and discuss optimizations; particularly you should be prepared to talk about tradeoffs, why you'd make certain decisions, and how those decisions impact things. If it's an SDE1 interview, you won't be grilled as hard on optimizing. Technical but non-SDE interviews (including PM's, TPM's, SA's) will also have at least one technical component, and it will likely be a variation of a standard SDE/CompSci problem with relaxed constraints. You'll be judged less harshly so don't beat yourself up too much if the problem seems overwhelming. Focus on understanding it, asking to clarify requirements (very important), and presenting any solution that seems to fit the scope. It's ok to say "I don't know, but I would do X, Y, and Z to find the answer" or "this may not be exactly what you're looking for, but I think I would implement it like this".
Some job levels and families require a written essay type thing as part of the in-person interview. You'll do this before and complete it before your interview day. These *do* count so don't neglect them, but most interviewers could care less about them and won't even bring them up in the interview. As long as you can put together a coherent essay that addresses the topic using decent grammar you'll be fine.
Good luck.
Edit: I'm speaking broadly as Amazon/AWS is a very large company. Your experience can be pretty different depending on the team. I saw another commenter saying they didn't do any whiteboard coding. This could be due to the role they applied for or because that particular team likes to use a different method. Hiring teams have a good amount of flexibility on how they compose their interviews, but the stereotypical SDE interviews with whiteboarding are still pretty prevalent.
I'm a solutions architect at a larger biotech company with my main focus being the design and development of R&D use cases in the cloud. A big part of this role is front-facing with our internal scientists listening to their problems and coming up with solutions. I'm looking to dive deeper into the cloud, and AWS has always been a dream. I've applied to some solutions architect roles on their job board and the status is 'Under Consideration' so I may end up with an interview soon.
However, my main concern is that I haven't interviewed in almost five years, and from experience I know that interviewing skills are very different than on-the-job skills. For example, if they ask me any Leetcode style questions I know that I won't be able to solve anything more complicated than FizzBuzz. However, my hope is that because solutions architect is more of a sales role, there may not be a coding portion.
Anyways, just looking for general advice on what to prepare for ahead of time, even if I'm not ready today hopefully I'll be prepared for the future!
Hello! Not sure if this is the right place to post this question. I have an interview coming up where I am required to have basic knowledge about AWS. I am completely clueless as to where to begin in order to learn. AWS seems to have a lot of services. What are the most important ones? How do I learn them? Can anyone help?
The AWS recruiters reach out to me every year. Some years I oblige and interview. So far I’ve tried interviewing there 3 different times and not pass the 2nd round of interviews.
Is there a point when they would stop interviewing me?
Hey everyone, Im currently working in the development space, I have 4-5 years of industry development experience.
I wanted to get some insight regarding working at AWS as well as what their interview process is like? I've previously worked for a lot of start ups because I get quite a wide scope of work and get to be involved in stuff outside my "box". But AWS due to its size is a whole different ball game.
-
What can I expect from the interview process?
-
Is there stuff they do/don't particularly like?
-
What's the culture like? (This could be different globally compared to the Cape Town offices)
Any other input/advice is welcome.
Note: It's for an SDE role in their EC2 team in Cape Town, South Africa.
Hello everyone I was recently asked by AWS to do an L4 interview loop for a DCEO tech position.
I’m extremely nervous about this, and I’m just trying to get some insight about how they make their hiring decisions.
About 2 months ago I was asked to interview for a similar role and my interviewer was a chief engineer.
Shortly afterwards within a day or so, I was told they were going with someone else.
Needless to say I was extremely disappointed, since I felt really good about the interview.
Fast forward to now and I interviewed again for another role.
This time I was interviewed by a Facility Manager and he asked some pretty solid questions and gave me high praise about my resume and my experience, and recommend me for the L4 loop.
I have some theories about the situation but I’m unsure.
I’m wondering what the likelihood of being outright rejected is once you get to the panel interview?
I kinda feel like initially being interviewed by someone who has the ability to make decisions is a solid indicator that I would get an offer.
Secondly I feel like they probably wouldn’t waste 4 people’s time interviewing me for over 4 hours in a panel interview.
I’m kinda thinking that getting to this point means an offer….now it’s how well I do in the panel interview means….How much is that offer gonna be.
Is this solid logic regarding their process or am I missing something?
FYI…I’m still working to prepare so I can crush it….I am just trying to ease my nerves so I can focus and not overthink things.
Thank you!
DCO tech here, just combining my experience with the loop interview and asking my manager about it after joining the company. I believe the biggest thing they're looking for is whether or not you're coachable.
When I was preparing, I prepared for both the technical questions and soft skill questions. Ultimately, of the 5 loop interviews, only one of them asked technical questions. Amazon focus a lot on STAR format, so when preparing for those, keep in mind when laying out your story, think about which of the leadership principles applies to your situation. Be sure to mention that when discussing the resolution outcome.
Amazon basically has a setup where if 1 interviewer has issues with you, you are rejected. At least that's how it was when i was there as a Cluster Manager. The amount as rarely very negotiable.
If you made it to a panel interview you likely are technically knowledgeable enough to work there, but now they will kind of ask you some culture fit stuff and personality stuff.
I recently applied for a position as an Electrical Engineer with AWS. The screening call went well and I was scheduled a one hour technical interview with a senior engineer. I felt that the interview went okay, however I could have taken too long to answer some of the questions which led to a bit of a time crunch for the behavioral questions at the end. I have several years of electrical industry experience and think that my experience can represent me better than technical questions can in many ways. Has anyone here had a similar experience with an interview? If so how did it pan out for you?
this is only a phonescreen, if you have some good skills and not raised a flag, you will get an full loop
If you're in the interview loop then you're already being considered. Don't worry about the length of time you took to answer. Even if you didn't know everything, the Leadership Principles are going to factor in more than the technical side. Just study up on them and type out 2 stories for each one for quick reference when they ask the questions pertaining to the principle. You have to be able to answer those questions to be successful.
Hello Everyone,
Ever since I posted about my offer with Amazon, I have been asked a LOT about the interview process and how to prepare. So, I thought I could post a comprehensive guide for the process. Please be advised that I will not be covering the basics of leadership principles, STAR format and loop interview process in this post. This is a more in depth post about the actual process and some nuances that are not available online.
-
HR Phone Screen: This is the first round of the interview process with an Amazon recruiter on call. The recruiter will mostly ask basic questions about your resume and experience and pass you on to the next round if they think you are a good fit. I had two different experiences in this round. For the position I got hired for, the recruiter said I don’t need to do the HR phone screen since she thought I was a good fit already. In another instance, I had the HR phone screen but the recruiter ghosted me. So it is hit or miss. On paper, Amazon has a 48-hour response time promise for this round.
-
Technical Phone Screen: I got a little lucky in this round because the interviewer was informed late and she asked questions from the top of her head. Even then, it was really technical, asking about my workflows, thought processes and experience with various software. I have been told horror stories of intense technical grilling, especially by SDE roles. So I would highly suggest preparing well. I used ChatGPT for this purpose. Some of my prompts were:
-
I am interviewing for <job posting link> with <interviewer linkedin link> on a technical phone screen. What kind of questions can I expect?
-
I am interviewing for <job posting link> with <interviewer linkedin link> on a technical phone screen. <job description line> is a core responsibility. What kind of questions can I expect? On paper, Amazon has a 48-hour response time promise for this round.
-
-
Recruiter Counselling Call: If you pass the technical phone screen, the recruiter will schedule what I call as a counselling call with you. They will discuss the loop structure, STAR format and leadership principles (LPS). There is a good chance they might tell you what leadership principles (out of Amazon’s 14) and technical competencies (TCs) will be needed for this role.
-
The Loop: Amazon loop interview is basically a panel 4-6 interviewers with each one given an hour to test you on LPs and TCs associated with the role. The hiring manager assigns LPs & TCs to each interviewer to test your abilities. Here is a typical amazon interview panel:
-
Hiring Manager
-
Bar Raiser: From a completely different team, has veto power to overturn the panel’s hiring decision
-
Cross-Functional Stakeholder
-
Teammates/Peers
-
Management Personnel
-
This is how I would prepare for my loop if I were to do it all over again, assuming I am confident about the job description expectations. My prompts to ChatGPT were:I am interviewing for the role of <job posting link> with Amazon. <linkedin profile link> is a loop interviewer. What kind of questions can I expect?
I am interviewing for the role of <job posting link> with Amazon. The LPs & TCs associated are _____. What questions can I expect?
Get creative with prompts. Use multiple AI agents. It’s all worth it, the more the better. Amazon expects all answers in STAR format unless specifically said “scenario based question”. STAR is basically a Situation-Task-Action-Result format. The time I recommend for each answer is 6-10 minutes, with a 20-20-40-20 split. Amazon has a 5-day response time promise for this round and I heard back on day 4.
Personal Advise:
-
Make at least 15-20 STAR format stories. Match LPs to stories, not the other way around. One story can be associated with multiple LPs.
-
I recommend not repeating stories within the loop BUT I did repeat two stories twice and I was okay.
-
Don’t be nervous, but at the same time don’t make small talk unless reciprocated. Interviewers are very formal and serious at Amazon. They are trained to do so.
-
Carry a single page notes sheet with summary of all stories.
-
Use as many numbers as possible.
-
Ask ChatGPT to review, rate and polish all your STAR format answers. Repeat this for every answer until ChatGPT rates it 4.5 or above.
So yeah as the title says, I'm looking for typical Amazon Web Service job interview questions. I'm new to the world of AWS, and have never been required to answer questions about it before. That's why I need help.
I'd appreciate every "question" you respond to this thread, including the ideal answer. Just to save me the time I need for googling