I worked at Amazon for 5 years and was in over 100 interview loops. Amazon won't hire you if you don't have the skills, but they are/were relatively lax in hiri

I worked at Amazon for 5 years and was in over 100 interview loops. Amazon won't hire you if you don't have the skills, but they are/were relatively lax in hiring compared to other big FAANG companies. It is also helpful that they historically have been such a huge and growing company that if you have the skills and the basic interview techniques down, they will try pretty hard to find a place for you. Amazon at least used to also offer a down-leveled role if it was obvious that you were a good programmer but couldn't prove to the capricious hiring loop that you were going to perform at the level you were applying for. This means if you are a mid-senior level programmer that interviewing for Amazon is kind of a slam-dunk in the sense that you'll definitely get hired even if for a lower level. I have thought similar to the grand-parent commenter about having Amazon as a fallback in the Seattle area. Not my ideal but somewhere that is always recruiting me and would pay the bills if the smaller company I am working for went under.