I applied through other source. The process took 8 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2009
Interview
Initially contacted by HR to consider a position. Went through 3 phone interviews from the same group. All very technical programming / algorithm questions. Then I went for a site visit in Seattle, which was very well organized. Hotel was excellent. Next day was a full day interview. Morning was 3 1 hour interviews with team members and 1 manager. Another interview during lunch with a brain teaser. 3 more 1 hour interviews in the afternoon, 2 technical, 1 HR.
Overall I thought I did very well in the morning. After lunch was downhill. Be careful what you eat during lunch! All the blood went from my brain to my stomach and the interview room in the afternoon was a small room with no windows. Combine that with some jet-lag (I flew in from the east coast). No surprise I didn't get an offer.
Overall atmosphere was very young, casual and diverse. Very university-like. People walking around in backpacks. One girl came in the morning walking and working on her laptop at the same time.
Expenses paid as promised. Direct deposit to my bank account.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
You are to write a spell checker. Discuss the API, Data Structures and Algorithms.
Interview by recuriter, Phone interview over Chime with one easy Leet code problem and 2 behavioral questions. Although the interviewer was very casual at the start of the conversation, it quickly changed into behavioral questions at the start.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Encoding optimization algorithm and talk about a project you did recently.
First round is just leet code coding which screens through AI before going into live coding. Pretty simple and straighforward. Not too tough. Recruiter walks through it pretty nicely. Not sure how many rounds there are exactly
After submitting my application for the Software Engineer position, I received an invitation to complete an automated Online Assessment (OA). The assessment consisted of standard coding challenges, primarily focusing on algorithmic and data structure problems. Unfortunately, a few days after submitting my solutions for the assessment, I received an email informing me that I would not be moving forward in the interview process and was rejected.