I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2013
Interview
I was solicited by an Amazon recruiter via Linked In for a Senior TPM role in Seattle. Following a couple of emails exchanged, had a 30 minute call with recruiter, following two 1 hour technical interviews with software directors. Though they ultimately passed on me, was a great learning experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me what a critical section is used for in C++.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Bengaluru)
Interview
Three rounds of phone interviews. Followed by six discussions at their onsite office in bangalore.
Questions were mostly around design. Example how would you design a system for creating a dynamic URL. How would you reduce latency in a page given the below conditions. Etc.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would u design a system that would at real time bring in vendor data and keep displaying recommendations on the site?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in May 2013
Interview
A amazon recruiter contacted me and I was given the opportunity to take an online test. The test was very straight forward and pretty easy. About a month later I was given a phone interview, that took 2 weeks to set up. The questions were very straight forward and about my past experience. At this point he wanted to set up a second phone interview that would focus more on my technical experience. This interview happened about a month after the first phone interview. The interview was about an hour long and was comprised of about 5 questions. The questions were very long and somewhat complex, you had to keep a lot in your head and describe how you would solve a problem through an architecture. I don’t think the questions would have normally been difficult, but you could tell the interviewer was reading from a paper, on a speaker phone and had a thick accent. This made it VERY difficult to understand, keep track of, and design as he read the long scenarios. I had to continually ask him to repeat and clarify what he was asking. As I was explaining the design, he would dive deeper (as expected) which required me to ask him to repeat some of the other aspects I didn’t not completely hear. He was a very nice guy, but I knew at that point the interview did not go well.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I don't think the questions would have been difficult, there was just a language barrier over a speaker phone. From what I could make out of the last question, it was how would you deal with a project that was delayed for 4 months you had a month to complete it, you also have 3 other projects that were due at the same time, you were under staffed and could only get 1 additional developer. As I explained how I would approach it, he would keep adding complexity (i.e one of them is a high value customer).