The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Jun 2011
Interview
The interview process in general was fairly well-coordinated. I was interviewing for Sr. Product Mgr role at AWS (EC2 and S3 teams). The process for interviewing at AWS might be a bit different than for the other groups at Amazon, primarily because they see AWS as a start-up within Amazon and are trying to keep that start-up atmosohere (at least so I was told). Also, they recently introduced a new step for product managers in the interview process: before you are invited to the onsite interview, you need to submit a writing sample which tests your communication and verbal skills. But all in all, the interview process and questions were very similar to what you find here in the reviews - plenty of pricing questions and the majority of the interview is behavioral. I had two phone interviews before being invited to the onsite 1-1 interviews in Seattle. The phone interviews was fairly straight forward, 10-15 min about your background and fairly easy mini-case to test your problem solving/analytical skills (keep in mind that the case is most probably related to one of the business problems amazon is currently facing, or "how can you make it better" sort of problem - again, expect lot of pricing questions!).
After the phone interviews, I got invited to Seattle for onsite interview, which is actually when I changed my opinion about Amazon: I had 7 back-to-back interviews from 9 until 4 which is pretty exhausting ( I didn't even get a lunch break!). I know that amazon is trying to stress-test the candidates, but 7 back-to-back interviews without lunch is just not OK! Also, keep in mind that I went to a top 3 b-school and interviewed with wallstreet banks and was in management consulting before and nobody does 7 back-to-back interviews with no break in between - It is just stupid and I am not sure what they are trying to evaluate. The folks I have met with weren't really that intelligent, but everyone was snobby and thought that they are top smart because they work at Amazon - one of the Director I was talking to couldn't even differentiate between the terms "market penetration" and "market size" and I was pretty disappointed at the intellectual caliber of the people I met. Some of the VPs I spoke to came into into the interview completely unprepared and you could feel it - a couple of them confused me with the other candidates they are interviewing the same day. I already knew after my second interview, that I will not be a good fit for the company and the rest of the interviews during the day proved it. Also, they try to imitate the McKinsey-interview process (I worked for McK) during the onsite interviews, but McK is extremely structured and does it with perfection, and you can feel that amazon's process is just a very cheap imitation of that model - you shouldn't use McK model if you are unstructured and can't execute it!
All in all, it was an interesting experience, but I don't think I would have gone to AWS even if I would have got the offer - they are very unstructured and unorganized who think they are the smartest(which is NOT true, they don't even come close to the folks I've spoken to at Google!)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Can't post due to NDA! But none of the questions was too difficult-prepare for the behavioral type questions and read a bit about pricing.
The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in May 2011
Interview
Recruiter contacted me out of the blue. I initially said I wasn't interested as the job didn't fit my background or skillset, but I was eventually convinced to discuss the position. Several separate sources told me that Amazon was known to be a terrific place to work, so I moved forward.
The first interview was with the hiring manager, who was great, I really like their style and how they conducted themselves and I felt good about the opportunity.
Following week I spoke with a more technical person, who at the end of the fairly long interview said the position was more technical than I was and he didn't think I was right for it, but that he liked my approach. I mentioned that the job description vs. what I seemed to be interviewing for was one of my concerns about the position to begin with. In this area, at least, they seem to have a disconnect between how they describe their positions, and what they actually want out of them.
I wasn't really upset at not moving forward, it was more that after two rounds of interviews beyond the recruiter screening (the second one being a fairly grueling 2 hours):
1) They didn't have the courtesy to let me know I would not be moving on.
2) After I pinged the recruiter for a followup, I still didn't receive a "thanks but no thanks" reply.
I'm a little annoyed at this treatment since my time is valuable, and this degree of unprofessional behavior at this point in the process is not what I'd expect from company of this size and reputation.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
The standard "how did you handle a conflict situation where there were two different points of view?"
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Sep 2010
Interview
Contacted by an Amazon recruiting coordinator who set up an initial phone screen with the hiring manager. The initial interview was two weeks after the first contact took about an hour. It was a combination of basic background and information about the position. This was followed by two additional phone interviews over the next couple of weeks with different people in the department.
After making it through the phone interviews, I was scheduled for an all-day in-person interview. I met with 7 different people one by one, including a lunch with one person. I also met with a recruiter who told me she would be following up with me. Each of the people I talked with on the phone also interviewed me in person.
Each person was cordial, but no nonsense. They never really tried to sell me on the job or the company. All seemed very smart and, in a couple of cases, kind of overbearing about it. But overall, very professional and capable people interviewed me.
Why did I mark this down as a negative experience? Simply because they never contacted me afterwards to officially say no offer. No follow-up. Zero. I waited a couple of weeks, sent an email to the recruiter and the hiring manager and never heard back. When you go to all that effort to bring someone in (after 3 phone interviews) and then drop the ball when it comes time to closure, it's simply unprofessional and kind of sad.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Pick an Amazon product and tell me how you would double revenue on it in the next year.