I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Amazon Web Services in Apr 2024
Interview
The interview process for the legal counsel role involved submitting your CV, completing a written questionnaire to elaborate on the experience noted in the CV, an initial 1 hour interview, a written exercise and finally 5 separate 1 hour long interviews with various individuals across the legal team.
I get the impression that Amazon just run a conveyor belt of candidates through this process as it feels arms length and impersonal. You only correspond by email and the interviews are scheduled with people who are not based in the same team or country the role is for. The advert for the role on LinkedIn has also been live for some months. It felt like an exercise in helping junior staff practice their interview skills.
Inevitably the same questions were repeated across the 6 separate interviews. One of the interviewees even asked the same 2 situational questions that were asked in the initial interview. Resilience is tested in the final interviews with some of the 5 being scheduled back-to-back . You are also cautioned not to use the same example again. To ace these interviews I would suggest planning and rehearsing extremely detailed answers. No questions are asked about reasons / motivations for applying for the role.
Amazon famously is driven by data, except when the anecdotal is conflicting. This is clearly how they've approached the interviewing process as 5 hours will provide a decent amount of data. However, the "vibe" meter also carries merit. What makes this process frustrating is that the most senior interviewer clearly has the say. To ask a candidate to undertake this level of time commitment before coming (virtually) face-to-face with the person who will ultimately make the decision is frustrating. I would only suggest applying for these types of roles if you commit the time to rehearsing the STAR answers, so they are watertight and you are essentially an anecdotal jukebox.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Give an example of when you have dealt with a difficult customer?
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon Web Services (Washington, DC)
Interview
I interviewed with Amazon for a Corporate Counsel role. The process included multiple interview rounds and a writing sample assessment. All behavioral questions required structured responses using the STAR method format.
The Amazon interviewer asked questions based on Amazon principles. These were mostly hypothetical scenarios type questions. Some technical skill level questions as well. Interview process was alright - conducted over zoom.