Interviewing at Amazon is extensively covered, but I hope this is useful to those working outside of technical/engineering teams.
My timeline:
* Nov 5: friend submitted referral
* Nov 12: received assessment invitation; completed on Nov 15
* Nov 16/17: recruiter confirmed phone interview with hiring manager on Nov 19
* Nov 20/23: recruiter confirmed virtual loop interview on Dec 7 (extended break for US Thanksgiving)
* Dec 11: decision email
The assessment is about your working style and how you approach problems, no math involved. All of your decisions should be guided by the (dreaded) Leadership Principles. Heads up: my assessment invitation was sent straight to spam (which is why I completed it several days after "receiving" it), so be on the lookout.
The phone interview was pretty typical. Very standard behavioral questions as any other phone screen, and the hiring manager actually left plenty of time for questions at the end despite being 5 minutes late to the call.
Biggest tip I have is to link each LP with multiple stories and be prepared to switch them around to avoid repeating your answers. Interviewers will share your responses with each other, and they do NOT like repeats as it shows you have limited experience.
The loop interview is taxing but nothing surprising: 4 45-minute interviews with 15-minute breaks in between. With all the resources Amazon has, they should rework the virtual loop - Chime is an awful conferencing software, and 2 of my 4 interviewers had to turn off their videos and call in because the lag was so bad.
Additionally, an in-person loop includes a lunch break, which helps recharge and build rapport, and there was virtually no time for questions after each interview in the loop. It was also readily apparent during interviews that they're heavily focused on work successes, not so much people and culture. One of my interviewers has worked at Amazon for 7 years and was one of the longest tenured employees in the organization.
One of my interviewers didn't seem to be paying attention since she asked me to repeat my answers multiple times. Two (including the bar raiser, the one person not on the hiring manager's team/business) asked hypotheticals after my STAR responses, which I don't think that's an effective use of time. For example, "what if you didn't have this resource, how would you have approached it?"
I truly dislike that Amazon provides zero feedback on what you could have done better in the interview, despite them asking for YOUR feedback on their interview process. Again, for a company worth so much, you would think they'd extend that level of courtesy to you.
Truth be told, I think the downtime between my first interview and the loop made me lose momentum, as I had finished interviewing with other companies before Thanksgiving and received offers from them the week of. I understand that the timing just didn't work in my favor to work here.
Nothing should catch you off guard during the interview process at Amazon. Good luck!