I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2016
Interview
I didn't have a phone screen with the recruiter because I was a referral. However, I did speak with the recruiter so that I could understand the hiring process and know what to expect. The recruiter and coordinator where best I've ever dealt with. They gave me very good information and responded quickly to my questions.
I started with a phone screen with another SDM which consisted mostly of behavioral and experience questions. The screen lasted approximately 30 minutes and I asked questions for another 15 minutes. The interviewer asked good probing followup questions.
The on-site interview was about three weeks later (due to my PTO) and was from 10-3, including a lunch interview which was more casual and was a good opportunity to ask lot of questions. I met with 7 different folks, each for ~45 minutes. I had one person do a systems design session, and one bar-raiser. All of them seemed like good people to work with. They were smart, asked good questions, some hard some easy. The bar-raiser, I'm pretty sure was a distinguished engineer or very senior principal, and was the most intense and challenging. Even so, he was professional and respectful.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I prepared by trying to understand the 14 leadership principals and then prepared several experiences per principal. I don't think it was necessary to memorize memorize the list of principals, but you should be able to rattle off a few in context and be able to talk about any of them if asked. Questions are usually, "tell a time when..." performance management, hard problems, process improvement, etc. You can't really prep for the design question but it will be vague so ask questions.
Phone screen, 5 1 hour interviews for loop
Each hour was dedicated to 2 LPs. System design was more collaborative than i anticipated which was a pleasant surprise. The phone screen mostly focused on my previous experiences
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard LP based scenarios, system design was actual system the team owns
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Tokyo) in Feb 2026
Interview
The interview process is straightforward but intense.
First interview was with another Software Dev Manager in the same team. After that the famous loop interview where I had to take 5 interviews in a row over two days ( using paid holidays at work ). Recruiter gave a lot of information about possible questions and helped with materials. However, I had to use same stories few times as the different interviewers asked same questions few times.
Everything is okay, I had a good time during the interviews and it was a good exercise. However, I simply do not understand why they have to call to reject? I am not a customer to be obsessed with. A straight cut rejection via email works better than taking time out of my busy schedule.
If they used this time to share some feedback, that would be useful. If they do not share any reason why I have to continue formal small talk just to get the rejection on my face?
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A time you were driving toward a goal and realized more than halfway in that it may not be the best goal.
Had 1 round of System design interview. I thought the interview went ok, if not bad, it went decently well. Received a rejection response, while asking to apply 6 months later.