I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in May 2015
Interview
Got an employee referral to the job. Conducted an initial phone screen with a recruiter, then another phone screen with a supervisor in the specific department I was applying to. Following that, I was invited into Amazon for a full day of interviews. Conducted 8 (8!!!) face to face interviews with various members of the department. Everyone was very cordial and open to discussion. I greatly appreciated the transparency and honesty when I asked tough questions about the job and the company. With 8 different people interviewing you, don't expect to nail every single meeting. Some went really well, others just okay. Most interviewers take notes on their laptops, so make sure you can stay on message while someone isn't looking at you and is busy typing. Despite the note taking, most interviews were fairly conversational and behavioral based.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Your standard behavioral question - tell me about a time you failed, when you had to correct a coworker and how you did it, when you had to tell someone a harsh truth, a time you completed a project, etc. All questions are used to test you competency in Amazon's 14 Leadership Principles, so I made sure I had solid examples for each leadership principle and were able to tie my experiences to those principles. Most interviews aren't going to hit it right on the nose - "tell me about a time you demonstrated a bias for action", etc. Instead, they want to hear about your experiences and it's up to you to make sure you explain how the results fit within Amazon's culture.
Interview process is challenging but expected as everything you need to know is available online. They will schedule you with 4 employees from the team or organization you will work with and 1 completely separated from your organization as a "bar raiser". No need to work to impress one specific person, know 12-14 differentiated STAR formatted stories by memory.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time you had to sacrifice short-term gain for long-term success. What did you do? What was the outcome?
3 loops of 45 min interviews with people from different teams I would work together with if I get hired, Standard behavioral questions, 3 to 4 per interview and a few follow-up questions to each answers, follow-up styles differ by the interviewer
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time you created a metric to identify a need for change.
Not great. Very first interview had no proper introduction to the role and was not with HR, interviewee went straight into a case study within 5 minutes. Didn't seem interested in my actual work background.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is one difficult thing you've experienced and overcome?