I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (London, England) in Jul 2014
Interview
Applied though Amazon website, I was contacted by the recruiter at Amazon who arranged a telephonic interview. Two telephonic interviews one with Software Development Manager and other with Software Engineer.
First telephonic interview was generally around my past experience both technical and behavioral mostly "tell me about the time questions.." questions. I was asked about a project I was really proud of and high level architecture of the project. I took the Situation Action Response approach for all my answers. Keeping in the leadership principles in mind and focusing on them in my answer's. I asked a few times if I needed to go into details (I was ignored) I believe they have a set of questions and they just run through them.
Second round of interview was scheduled with Senior Software Development Manager but instead a Software Engineer called - so it turned out to be a technical interview - again it was mainly on the architecture of my current project and than follow up questions on why we are doing things in certain way I did reply to all of his questions when it was 3 mins remaining he asked me to write a code to implement a stack. I took time here as I wrote the sudo code (dint need it but I dint want to spoil it for me), I told him I am writing the sudo code first. I wrote the code and read it out I believe he was happy with it. I apologized we over ran the allocated time. The guy who called me sounded really cool and relaxed. His questions were impressive.
It took about a week for them to let me know the answer in each instance I did follow up after a week. I don't really get the reason for rejection. I have emailed the recruiter but I don't think they will reply. The whole 2 interview took about 6 weeks.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I did not think any questions were difficult everything was common sense. Below are some questions I was asked.
1) Tell me about a project that you are proud of
2) What matrix did you use to determine the success?
3) Tell me about instances where you had most difficult time with people management.
4) How did you work with a low performer with was the outcome?
5) Did you have to fire anyone?
6) What are the disadvantages of Agile?
7) What is the high level architecture of your current project?
8) Have you implemented a project from scratch how did it go? High level architecture.
9) Implement stack in any language.
Phone screen, 5 1 hour interviews for loop
Each hour was dedicated to 2 LPs. System design was more collaborative than i anticipated which was a pleasant surprise. The phone screen mostly focused on my previous experiences
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard LP based scenarios, system design was actual system the team owns
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Tokyo) in Feb 2026
Interview
The interview process is straightforward but intense.
First interview was with another Software Dev Manager in the same team. After that the famous loop interview where I had to take 5 interviews in a row over two days ( using paid holidays at work ). Recruiter gave a lot of information about possible questions and helped with materials. However, I had to use same stories few times as the different interviewers asked same questions few times.
Everything is okay, I had a good time during the interviews and it was a good exercise. However, I simply do not understand why they have to call to reject? I am not a customer to be obsessed with. A straight cut rejection via email works better than taking time out of my busy schedule.
If they used this time to share some feedback, that would be useful. If they do not share any reason why I have to continue formal small talk just to get the rejection on my face?
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A time you were driving toward a goal and realized more than halfway in that it may not be the best goal.
Had 1 round of System design interview. I thought the interview went ok, if not bad, it went decently well. Received a rejection response, while asking to apply 6 months later.
