I’ll speak strictly to SDE roles at Amazon. Unless you’re recommended by a Senior VP, a recommendation or Stanford degree will not do much more than help you ge

I’ll speak strictly to SDE roles at Amazon. Unless you’re recommended by a Senior VP, a recommendation or Stanford degree will not do much more than help you get an interview. A hiring manager can try to fight others on the interview loop and overrule a bar raiser, but they’re really putting themselves out there for you. Maybe they really fight for a candidate once or twice, but it’s not very common.