I applied online. The process took 6 months. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA)
Interview
An interview over the phone with an HR person. Three one-hour interviews over the phone with technical people (developers and a manager). A day-long interview on-site in Seattle with several individuals, one-hour time slots with each with a 1 hour lunch break.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The non-technical qustion were typical HR questions.
Technical questions were about how the candidate would approach the development of a system such as automating a parkade, which technology is more suitable than the other (SQL or NoSQL?), brain teasers and on-site coding on a white board (easy tasks, it happened that all interviewers asked string questions).
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2015
Interview
I had actually applied for Senior Software Engineer interview in AWS division of amazon. Went through phone screens and 1:1 6 onsite interviews in seattle with 2 teams. The teams liked me but suggested that SDM is a better fit for me based on my experience. After a few talks and discussions with recruiters and hiring managers, i was convinced and appeared for an abbreviated followup interview loop with senior managers. That worked for me very well.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Onsite interview : All whiteboard coding + system design + behavioral questions. Can't divulge the details due to NDA signed but very thorough process in testing your limits and depth of both coding and managerial experience.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2015
Interview
The process was somewhat disjointed, though positive. A recruiter contacted me on LinkedIn for this, and possibly another position. He set up a time to talk with me on the phone after I showed interest. He gave me an overview of the hiring process and some good tips on how to get hired. He also mentioned another position (one that I was far more interested in doing). About two weeks later I recieved a polite message that the hiring managers had passed on me. Personally, that was fair by me. However, they were interetested in me for another position and would like to proceed with that.
As much as the communication was somewhat distant and choppy, I have never had a recruiter take the time to tell me how to get hired. I liked that.
I have over 15 years experience in various roles in software development (programmer to boss) and an MBA. It is good to see a company not reject someone because they got in the wrong hiring queue. Better yet, they took the time to put my in the right queue.