Amazon Manager interview questions

I submitted my resume and cover letter through my university and got an e-mail to set up a phone interview with one of the senior managers a month after resume drop deadline. The interview was casual and was more focused on learning more about my experiences, interests in the company and commitment to the function I was applying for. After the first phone interview, I was contacted for a second interview (with the same type of phone interview--getting to know me). The last interview, I had to fly out for an in-person interview. There was a group of 4-5 members at my panel interview and another 1:1 interview. Overall, it was a very good, not so difficult experience.

Recruiter contacted me initially to interview for a Product Manager position, emailed me a job description, and then set up a phone screen with the interviewer. Recruiter emailed me back saying another manager had interest in my resume for a different position and wanted to talk with me before the 1st interviewer. The interview timeslot with the first interviewer came and went without any contact form the interviewer. When I contacted the recruiter she informed me that she had cancelled the first interview so that the 2nd manager could speak with me first. We had not yet scheduled the 2nd manager's phone screen. Recruiter was finally able to find a time with the 2nd manager. I rearranged my personal schedule to accomodate. 1 hour before the interview was scheduled to begin I received an email indicating that the interviewer had to reschedule and the new time was 5pm on a Friday afternoon. I rearranged my personal schedule again to accomodate. The night before my interview I still had not received a job description. I contacted the recruiter and she sent me a description for a position thsimilar to one I had interviewed for previously and for which I had not been extended an offer. I contacted the recruiter again asking if the interviewer had access to the feedback from my previous set of interviews because I didn't want to waste his time or mine if I was not suited for the position. The recruiter then contacted me again with a brand new job description that she said was the correct one. I prepared for my interview on the basis of that job description - researched the product that the position was responsible for, identified potential areas of investment in future versions of the product to improve the experience, prepared myself with several detailed examples of results I've achieved in my current and past positions in my 15 years as a professional in the industry that demonstrate each of the qualifications that were stated in the job description. And I prepared a list of questions based on the position responsibilities and the product. On Friday evening, the interviewer contacted me 20 minutes after we were scheduled to begin the interview. He was in a location that was filled with noise that made it difficult to hear him and was quite distracting. The 1st question he asked was appropriate for someone fresh out of college with no prior work history or professional experience to assess. I was prepared with many examples of complex problems that I had successfully solved in my current and previous roles expecting that an interviewer seeking a senior manager would be more interested in validating my claims of experience and assessing whether or not my talents matched what they were looking for. The question the interviewer asked me was "If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, and each participant had to play games until he/she one or lost, and every game had a winner and loser, how many games would have to be played in order to determine the winner of the tournament". I was NOT expecting this type of question as my first question in a phone screen for a senior manager position that was requiring "10-15 years of professional experience and a proven track record of managing and developing people in a fast paced and dynamic start up environment". I am also not good at these types of questions, and although I eventually answered the question, it wasn't my finest moment. He asked some additional questions that were more relevant. But when he gave me the opportunity ask my questions, he was extremely short in his responses. I asked what in his eyes made his product superior to that of his competitors, having familiarized myself with them and having my own ideas. His response was "The features" and then proceeded to question the intelligence of my question. When I asked him my next question, whether the manager role involved hiring an entire team or whether there was currently staff in place to perform some of the stated functions in the job description, and how they handled specific types of problems I would expect them to have to solve for (localized content, market-specific legal / regulatory issues) his response was "That's not the right job description. It's irrelevant". The interview ended and I was not at all surprised when I received a call from the recruiter on Monday morning saying that the interviewer decided NOT to extend an offer to come for in person interviews.