I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2018
Interview
Amazon recruiter contacted me with an opportunity. Quickly setup a call with the recruiter, then setup 2 Technical Phone Screens + 6 person On-Site interview. The process was very fast. Working with the recruiter was very pleasant.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The interview was broken down into mostly 2 parts:
System Design and Situational questions based on Amazon Leadership principles.
3 interviewers asked me system design questions like:
1. design a database schema for a certain configuration manager
2. Design a service that can handle hundreds of thousand transactions to be executed at a very specific time of the day (think about scale and error conditions)
3. Another question was about a real life problem that the interviewing team was having. I was asked to come up with a viable solution, design the system for the solution and define the APIs for each box (service) in my solution.
The other 3 interviewers mostly asked situational questions based on 1 or more Amazon leadership principles. Note, the interviewer will not reveal which leadership principle they are probing on.
El proceso es largo, en total son en promedio 7 entrevistas, de las cuales 5 son en loop, lo que significa que estas 5 entrevistas pueden ser el mismo dia, una tras otra, de una hora cada una
Followed the same Amazon process intial meeting with a recruiter, then multiple rounds with various team members, and the hiring manager. They use the STAR method or variations to answer with the situation, the challenge you faced, then the actions you take, and the result. If you don't use that format, you will not get positive feedback from the interviewer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions around handling difficult situations or how to handle disagreements within the team were a common theme.
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Los Angeles, CA) in Jan 2026
Interview
Recruiter screening friendly. Consistently great experiences with recruiters. Got HM interview but HM didn't do the interview. Guy who did lacked the background to assess my background in AI/ML. Amazon is now kicking people out of ATS for 6 months for related roles if you don't progress.
