The interview process is long and drawn out over two months - easily the most unpleasant interview experience I have ever had in my 10+ year IT career . There are preparation sessions for initial interviews, initial interviews, preparations for tech challenges, then taking the tech challenges, preparation for more tech interviews, then more technical interviews, preparation sessions for the final interviews, then finally a long five hour block of interviews. It's very time consuming, especially if you have a job or are applying to other companies. If you get to the final five hour interview and then don't get an offer for all your trouble, you will feel that you've had your time wasted. This is especially true if you pass all their technical challenges only to be told "you're not a fit for the role".
OK, fair enough. So why didn't they tell me this first before they got me to waste my time on multiple technical challenges, long interviews, and trivial technical questions? I had other interviews with other companies to manage too!
Many personality questions centre around their touted Leadership Principles. You should write a story about some experience where you displayed these traits. However they will seem to expect that your story to go a certain way that they are only prepared for. Most interviewers are taking notes and not responding which makes the interviews awkward, one-sided, and non-personal. It feels like more of an interrogation or impromptu test where you need to give them the exact thing they are looking for so they can check off the boxed on their pre-planned forms. If you don't answer the question the exact way they want, they get frustrated.
Their jabber server also cut out several times during the interview, and were quick to blame my setup despite my having tested it as working the day before with one of their colleagues. I'm not sure if handling false accusations calmly and rationally is part of the interview or not, but I was uncomfortably put on the spot.
Amazon seems to want to bluff you with the impression that they are exclusive to get into by making the interviews a run of the gauntlet, but given the length and number of tests all aimed at trying to disqualify you (as opposed to trying to find ways to hire you), I simply felt abused. What sane and in-demand engineer would be on the market long enough to wait around and tolerate this kind of treatment? How could they keep talent? I posit that their interview process doesn't yield leaders, but rather spineless "yes men" who think that being dragged around like this before being hired makes them "lucky" to be part of the company.
After the final interviews, and before I knew the result, I discovered the many serious complaints about Amazon work culture. Given my experience with the interviews, I was inclined to believe the horror stories. I was actually quite relieved that they didn't offer me a job.
I was told that the company doesn't like complainers. I am suspicious as to why this is because if done respectfully it's usually effective in getting positive change... that would shows leadership traits, right?
I probably should have displayed the one leadership principle that trumps all of theirs:- not to put up with entities who waste your time.