4 ms·

Awful Amazon Interview Experince

26 points by amir734jj 6y ago

I just wanted to share my recent experience interviewing with Amazon. I hope it helps everyone. About myself: I am a Ph.D. candidate in computer science, work at a financial company as a senior engineer, and teaching part-time at my university courses such as compiler, algorithm and data structures. I live in the midwest, USA. I love doing interviews and solving algorithm questions. Background: I interviewed at Palo Alto, CA office about a year ago and although it went well and I answered all the questions I was told: "this position wasn't a best fit for me" ... A few weeks ago I was reached out by an Amazon recruiter about an opportunity in the Seattle area and I was told the previous recruiter did not find a best match for me and she apologized for wasting my time. She said they would like to do a another round of interviews. As I love challenging myself, I said yes and I did a screening which I was given 2 algorithm questions and about 2 hours and I solved both of them and all my unit tests passed. For the second round of the interview, it was all online for 4 hours and I solved all questions and my code passed all unit tests for all their algorithm problems. Today I got a call from the recruiter saying that I was rejected because "my technical skills were lacking". I didn't want to argue with the recruiter so I accepted the feedback. I just wanted to share my story because I always saw these interviews with Amazon and Google as a challenge but now I feel like they are a complete joke. People who interviewed me were so arrogant and clueless. They had no clue how to calculate time complexity. No clue why provided unit tests were not enough and etc. They were just looking at the solution and thinking they know everything. I am so disappointed at Amazon and their interviewing process.

n_t 6y ago
Everyone knows that interviews are imperfect and interviewers even more so. It is mostly about getting a question which you have seen before. However, what piqued my interest is "recruiter saying that I was rejected because....". How does one get such specific feedback on their interview? Throughout my career all I ever got was "unfortunately we do not share feedback".
- amir734jj 6y ago
  I explicitly asked the recruiter and she said they don't share feedback, however ... and she shared feedback
- leoh 6y ago
  The secret of these big places is that some corners really suck. Although they have incredible, warm, intelligent people, they also have a lot of immature people, too, who who have solid cognitive ability, but don't necessarily have a lot of heart, capacity for introspection, or general kindness and merely care about working and getting ahead. People who are immature do what they're asked and put their heads down to be successful, but can be egoistic when around people they are interviewing, when around less senior colleagues, or around more senior colleagues they don't report to (due to jealousy). Although there are awesome, wonderful people, too, I would try not to take it too hard. If you're a Ph.D. and as smart as you sound like you are, another role with a different group either inside or outside of Amazon will make you much happier in the long term (though I can relate to how much of a bummer it can be to not get to be a part of a place that you want to be a part of).
  - AtlasBarfed 6y ago
    Amazons work culture is not warm or friendly. It is cutthroat,stack ranked, bar raising, judgmental, up or out, and chaotic.
  - bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
    > can be egoistic when around people they are interviewing, when around less senior colleagues, or around more senior colleagues they don't report to (due to jealousy). 100%. Amazon is known for an organizational culture strongly oriented toward this kind of behavior (textbook sociopathy, btw).
  - bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
    Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers Tim Bray says the company has become 'toxic' and the firings are 'designed to create a climate of fear.' https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bjpj/amazon-vp-tim-bray-resigns-calls-company-chickenshit-for-firing-protesting-workers https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bjpj/amazon-vp-tim-bray...
    - amir734jj 6y ago
      Thanks for sharing
- rumanator 6y ago
  > However, what piqued my interest is "recruiter saying that I was rejected because....". How does one get such specific feedback on their interview? The answer is simple: you don't. The OP already downgraded his claim to stating he took a one-liner remark made by the recruiter as feedback regarding for his entire performance. Even taking OP's comment at face value, and even believing that recruiters debrief candidates regarding their performance, a single sentence does not cover nor summarize a multi-stage interview.
jhwang5 6y ago
Ok, so you got rejected and didn't receive meaningful feedback, so you are venting on HN.
- amir734jj 6y ago
  Venting not because I got rejected, I hate complaining. I was so looking forward to the interview and I love doing interviews. I am venting here because I expected more from a company that is so proud of its interviewing process and I am disappointed.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    By “expecting more”, do you mean “get an offer”? People who interviewed me were so arrogant and clueless. They had no clue how to calculate time complexity. No clue why provided unit tests were not enough and etc. They were just looking at the solution and thinking they know everything. If you displayed this type of disdain at the interview they might have caught on to it. In the famous Joel quadrant of “smart and get things done”. You might have come across too much in the “smart” and not enough in the “get things done”.
mrslave 6y ago
There's a lot of variance in the employment processes of $$$MEGACORPs. Your attitude to give it a go and maybe learn something is admirable. I suggest you incorporate risk/variance into your time investment formula next time. And, from your experience, you learnt that there's many imperfections, even at "the world's best companies". But possibly yourself too, as feedback from failed employment applications is always incomplete.
zer0zzz 6y ago
Don’t feel too bad. I had an interview with them recently and a week later the recruiter told me I was going to get an offer the following Monday. It’s been almost 2 weeks and no word on any offer. I haven't bothered the recruiter though since I don’t want to work there but it’s still kinda strange.
jtthe13 6y ago
Could it be both true that there are indeed companies who are bad at hiring AND that you haven't picked on more subtle hints about what the problems were? I'm interviewing a lot of people. Our company makes it a fundamental part of interviewing to give honest, action-driven feedback (e.g. we recommend pieces of training, books, even competitors sometimes as we think they'll be a better fit there). One of our selection criteria is the candidate's reaction to feedback. It seems you disagree rather strongly with some assessments. There might have been other selection criteria. Either they were not transparent enough about them, or you were not listening.
rumanator 6y ago
Some of your complaints lack credibility. For starters, I find it odd that you claim that the recruiter gave you feedback, and on the technical skills of all things. If you reached the last round of interviews of a FAANG, that round does not focus on technical aspects and it's more focused on soft skills and personality traits that emerge during the interview. In fact, I know for a fact that they don't look at the solution at all, and look at the process that the candidate follows such as how he takes suggestions and how he attacks problems or how he adapts to changing requirements. Sure, there are technical questions, but they barely fill 30% of the interview time, and even then their main goal is to gather info on the candidate's personality traits. With that in mind, it's easy to believe you bombed your interview if you are the type of person who opens a discussion on a public forum attacking your interviewer with accusations of being too incompetent to evaluate you and too immature and having no clue about how great you are and how awesome you did. Just from this post alone I was readily convinced I would hate to work with someone like you, and apparently so did your interviewers. If you ask me, they've clearly dodged a bullet.
- amir734jj 6y ago
  She gave me one-sentence feedback. Why should I lie? what will I gain? I wanted to share my experience. That's it. I got all the unit test passing for all their algorithm questions. I didn't bomb the interview. Maybe we have different definitions.
  - 14u2c 6y ago
    You're responding to a comment claiming that technical questions are not as important by saying you passed all the technical questions. I was on the fence about OPs theory, but this comment does not help your case. You didn't really process the feedback, even if you don't agree with it. They might look for that.
    - jtthe13 6y ago
      Yup. Not to point towards OP's case specifically, but it's a usual trap a lot of exact science majors (and many PhDs) fall into. I'm not saying it's limited to exact sciences BTW — personality is also a factor. There's a joke here that we should stop our startup and start a business coaching PhDs navigating the job market. There's money there I tell ya :)
so_tired 6y ago
Why is this getting flagged? Are large tech companies now somehow shielded from criticism? This experience actually sounds both common and unavoidable. FAANGs have x10 candidates for every position. So the interviews are indeed both difficult and arbitrary. And after a rejection they can always call you after 6 months and restart the whole shtick. So why not. Sigh. As someone who interviewed 100s of software engineers - its just the system doing its best, and there is usually no bad-intent on either side.
- scarface74 6y ago
  I doubt that it is getting flagged because HN users are so in love with Amazon. More likely because if OP displayed as much of an entitled attitude as they displayed in the submission, they dodged a bullet.
scarface74 6y ago
Everyone thinks they are above average. Is an interview experience awful every time that someone gets rejected from a job they think they should have had?
andor 6y ago
"People who interviewed me were so arrogant and clueless. They had no clue how to calculate time complexity. No clue why provided unit tests were not enough and etc. They were just looking at the solution and thinking they know everything." They were probably running through a standardized interview with you, with the goal of making it a more objective process and to allow comparing results. Such interviews can appear to be about technical tasks, while actually some other things are evaluated, e.g. how you approach solving issues, how you interact with others, how opinionated you are, etc. If they had "no clue how to calculate time complexity", I'd guess the interviewer played this role and expected you to explain how to do it, patiently and without any judgement. How did you respond?
bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
1. Sure, maybe you're fabricating or exaggerating this 2. Sure, maybe Amazon interviewers are all consummate professionals with zero character flaws, zero personality disorders, and a consistently applied and unimpeachable conceptualization of "professionalism" And yet, your story completely comports with my Amazon interview experience and every subsequent experience I've had with an Amazon recruiter. (In ways that are remarkable because they stand out relative to experiences with other companies.) The signal is clear to me at this point: to Amazon, you're cattle. Anyway, thanks for posting this.

26 points by amir734jj 6y ago

n_t 6y ago

Everyone knows that interviews are imperfect and interviewers even more so. It is mostly about getting a question which you have seen before. However, what piqued my interest is "recruiter saying that I was rejected because....". How does one get such specific feedback on their interview? Throughout my career all I ever got was "unfortunately we do not share feedback".

amir734jj 6y ago
I explicitly asked the recruiter and she said they don't share feedback, however ... and she shared feedback
leoh 6y ago
The secret of these big places is that some corners really suck. Although they have incredible, warm, intelligent people, they also have a lot of immature people, too, who who have solid cognitive ability, but don't necessarily have a lot of heart, capacity for introspection, or general kindness and merely care about working and getting ahead. People who are immature do what they're asked and put their heads down to be successful, but can be egoistic when around people they are interviewing, when around less senior colleagues, or around more senior colleagues they don't report to (due to jealousy). Although there are awesome, wonderful people, too, I would try not to take it too hard. If you're a Ph.D. and as smart as you sound like you are, another role with a different group either inside or outside of Amazon will make you much happier in the long term (though I can relate to how much of a bummer it can be to not get to be a part of a place that you want to be a part of).
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  Amazons work culture is not warm or friendly. It is cutthroat,stack ranked, bar raising, judgmental, up or out, and chaotic.
- bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
  > can be egoistic when around people they are interviewing, when around less senior colleagues, or around more senior colleagues they don't report to (due to jealousy). 100%. Amazon is known for an organizational culture strongly oriented toward this kind of behavior (textbook sociopathy, btw).
- bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
  Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers Tim Bray says the company has become 'toxic' and the firings are 'designed to create a climate of fear.' https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bjpj/amazon-vp-tim-bray-resigns-calls-company-chickenshit-for-firing-protesting-workers https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bjpj/amazon-vp-tim-bray...
  - amir734jj 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing
rumanator 6y ago
> However, what piqued my interest is "recruiter saying that I was rejected because....". How does one get such specific feedback on their interview? The answer is simple: you don't. The OP already downgraded his claim to stating he took a one-liner remark made by the recruiter as feedback regarding for his entire performance. Even taking OP's comment at face value, and even believing that recruiters debrief candidates regarding their performance, a single sentence does not cover nor summarize a multi-stage interview.

jhwang5 6y ago

Ok, so you got rejected and didn't receive meaningful feedback, so you are venting on HN.

amir734jj 6y ago
Venting not because I got rejected, I hate complaining. I was so looking forward to the interview and I love doing interviews. I am venting here because I expected more from a company that is so proud of its interviewing process and I am disappointed.
- scarface74 6y ago
  By “expecting more”, do you mean “get an offer”? People who interviewed me were so arrogant and clueless. They had no clue how to calculate time complexity. No clue why provided unit tests were not enough and etc. They were just looking at the solution and thinking they know everything. If you displayed this type of disdain at the interview they might have caught on to it. In the famous Joel quadrant of “smart and get things done”. You might have come across too much in the “smart” and not enough in the “get things done”.

mrslave 6y ago

There's a lot of variance in the employment processes of $$$MEGACORPs. Your attitude to give it a go and maybe learn something is admirable. I suggest you incorporate risk/variance into your time investment formula next time. And, from your experience, you learnt that there's many imperfections, even at "the world's best companies". But possibly yourself too, as feedback from failed employment applications is always incomplete.

zer0zzz 6y ago

Don’t feel too bad. I had an interview with them recently and a week later the recruiter told me I was going to get an offer the following Monday. It’s been almost 2 weeks and no word on any offer. I haven't bothered the recruiter though since I don’t want to work there but it’s still kinda strange.

jtthe13 6y ago

Could it be both true that there are indeed companies who are bad at hiring AND that you haven't picked on more subtle hints about what the problems were? I'm interviewing a lot of people. Our company makes it a fundamental part of interviewing to give honest, action-driven feedback (e.g. we recommend pieces of training, books, even competitors sometimes as we think they'll be a better fit there). One of our selection criteria is the candidate's reaction to feedback. It seems you disagree rather strongly with some assessments. There might have been other selection criteria. Either they were not transparent enough about them, or you were not listening.

rumanator 6y ago

Some of your complaints lack credibility. For starters, I find it odd that you claim that the recruiter gave you feedback, and on the technical skills of all things. If you reached the last round of interviews of a FAANG, that round does not focus on technical aspects and it's more focused on soft skills and personality traits that emerge during the interview. In fact, I know for a fact that they don't look at the solution at all, and look at the process that the candidate follows such as how he takes suggestions and how he attacks problems or how he adapts to changing requirements. Sure, there are technical questions, but they barely fill 30% of the interview time, and even then their main goal is to gather info on the candidate's personality traits. With that in mind, it's easy to believe you bombed your interview if you are the type of person who opens a discussion on a public forum attacking your interviewer with accusations of being too incompetent to evaluate you and too immature and having no clue about how great you are and how awesome you did. Just from this post alone I was readily convinced I would hate to work with someone like you, and apparently so did your interviewers. If you ask me, they've clearly dodged a bullet.

amir734jj 6y ago
She gave me one-sentence feedback. Why should I lie? what will I gain? I wanted to share my experience. That's it. I got all the unit test passing for all their algorithm questions. I didn't bomb the interview. Maybe we have different definitions.
- 14u2c 6y ago
  You're responding to a comment claiming that technical questions are not as important by saying you passed all the technical questions. I was on the fence about OPs theory, but this comment does not help your case. You didn't really process the feedback, even if you don't agree with it. They might look for that.
  - jtthe13 6y ago
    Yup. Not to point towards OP's case specifically, but it's a usual trap a lot of exact science majors (and many PhDs) fall into. I'm not saying it's limited to exact sciences BTW — personality is also a factor. There's a joke here that we should stop our startup and start a business coaching PhDs navigating the job market. There's money there I tell ya :)

so_tired 6y ago

Why is this getting flagged? Are large tech companies now somehow shielded from criticism? This experience actually sounds both common and unavoidable. FAANGs have x10 candidates for every position. So the interviews are indeed both difficult and arbitrary. And after a rejection they can always call you after 6 months and restart the whole shtick. So why not. Sigh. As someone who interviewed 100s of software engineers - its just the system doing its best, and there is usually no bad-intent on either side.

scarface74 6y ago
I doubt that it is getting flagged because HN users are so in love with Amazon. More likely because if OP displayed as much of an entitled attitude as they displayed in the submission, they dodged a bullet.

scarface74 6y ago

Everyone thinks they are above average. Is an interview experience awful every time that someone gets rejected from a job they think they should have had?

andor 6y ago

"People who interviewed me were so arrogant and clueless. They had no clue how to calculate time complexity. No clue why provided unit tests were not enough and etc. They were just looking at the solution and thinking they know everything." They were probably running through a standardized interview with you, with the goal of making it a more objective process and to allow comparing results. Such interviews can appear to be about technical tasks, while actually some other things are evaluated, e.g. how you approach solving issues, how you interact with others, how opinionated you are, etc. If they had "no clue how to calculate time complexity", I'd guess the interviewer played this role and expected you to explain how to do it, patiently and without any judgement. How did you respond?

bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago

1. Sure, maybe you're fabricating or exaggerating this 2. Sure, maybe Amazon interviewers are all consummate professionals with zero character flaws, zero personality disorders, and a consistently applied and unimpeachable conceptualization of "professionalism" And yet, your story completely comports with my Amazon interview experience and every subsequent experience I've had with an Amazon recruiter. (In ways that are remarkable because they stand out relative to experiences with other companies.) The signal is clear to me at this point: to Amazon, you're cattle. Anyway, thanks for posting this.