I don't understand why to have all these tests for an applicant? Why not integrate an applicant into a team for a day and have pair programming sessions? I found, that nothing else works.
Amazon does this for some college hires.
Amazon software engineer interview
51–60 of 189 posts
Re: Amazon software engineer interview
#52It was never communicated which languages the coding test would be limited to before I started it.
Brilliant. They expect near-flawless execution (under tight time constraints) on these algorithm quizzes -- but can't manage to communicate up front which languages you'll be actually be allowed to code in.
Re: Amazon software engineer interview
#53In total I had a little less than one month to prepare for the interview. I can't help but to wonder if it was really worth it. Surely, his prep helped him get the job, but the entire prep stage he describes seems like a very high up-front cost. I've always felt that if I can't get through an interview with a little prep and my existing skills, I don't belong. You should know exactly why you want to work for Amazon.…
> I've always felt that if I can't get through an interview with a little prep and my existing skills, I don't belong. I have this feeling too, but I am not sure if it is warranted. Let's do a thought experiment: grab an engineer at random, don't tell the interviewers that they are already a colleague, and subject to the same interview process as everyone else. Now, is this engineer going to pass the interview? Maybe…
I know that Google's recruiters have told me that they often end up hiring candidates on their second or third interview attempts; even at a company with a fairly standardized interview format, they get a ton of what they consider "false negatives". It seems like a related phenomenon.
Re: Amazon software engineer interview
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting to see how "whiteboard interview" prep mirrors standardized test prep. What is frustrating is that the prep month (?! a month is an eternity) could have been used to contribute to an personal project of choice, which would have said a lot more about the author's ability to program.
Contribute to a personal project, socialize, learn a new language or framework, read books, etc. Amazing how many things you can miss out on with a month of "code" prep. And yeah, this definitely reminds me of high school a bit too much.
I used to believe this. As a masters student who is going to graduate soon, I have to put in months of preparation for the interviews. Nobody believes in your ability to write code even after having close to 100+ commits to a popular open source project. People expect you to come to the correct solution after 5 minutes of them asking the question.
Re: Amazon software engineer interview
#55In total I had a little less than one month to prepare for the interview. I can't help but to wonder if it was really worth it. Surely, his prep helped him get the job, but the entire prep stage he describes seems like a very high up-front cost. I've always felt that if I can't get through an interview with a little prep and my existing skills, I don't belong. You should know exactly why you want to work for Amazon.…
> I've always felt that if I can't get through an interview with a little prep and my existing skills, I don't belong. I have this feeling too, but I am not sure if it is warranted. Let's do a thought experiment: grab an engineer at random, don't tell the interviewers that they are already a colleague, and subject to the same interview process as everyone else. Now, is this engineer going to pass the interview? Maybe…
Most will fail. Amazon actually has an internal hiring standard that the candidate should be better than 50% of their peer employees in the position they're interviewing for. This goals helps Amazon strive to always hire more talented employees..
Re: Amazon software engineer interview
#56If he signed an NDA, I probably wouldn't write a blog post about the interview process, that's a good way of getting fired for cause, since the late 1990s.
I've never signed one, but I'm imagining that the NDA would probably cover any upcoming technologies or products that might come up during an interview, not an NDA about the interview process itself. The latter seems kinda silly IMO
I've signed Amazon's. If I remember correctly, it says not to talk about any workings of Amazon internals that you might learn during the interview, and not to talk about specifics of the questions. Things like the standard interview schedule, the focus on the Amazon leadership principles, etc are pretty well-known already, and I don't think talking about them will reveal anything that hasn't been revealed to the public.
Re: Amazon software engineer interview
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Get the book, "Cracking The Coding Interview." It was the most valuable resource for me in preparing for technical interviews near the end of my time in undergrad.
Yes, I bought it last week. But, couldn't answer through the questions because I didn't know the concepts and DS's. Could you answer these 2 questions? 1. Where did you learn how to implement the Data Structures and Algorithms? 2. Also, I'm in a dilemma between using Python and C/C++. Which one would you suggest?
> 1. Where did you learn how to implement the Data Structures and Algorithms?
Mostly? 1st year undergrad.
> 2. Also, I'm in a dilemma between using Python and C/C++. Which one would you suggest?
I like Python as a quick-to-write language (whiteboard friendly), but in my most recent interview, some of the questions were phrased to make them easier to implement in C (i.e. more natural to write in terms of pointer access, IMO). I think the answer really depends on the company and what they usually work in.
Re: Amazon software engineer interview
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Get the book, "Cracking The Coding Interview." It was the most valuable resource for me in preparing for technical interviews near the end of my time in undergrad.
Yes, I bought it last week. But, couldn't answer through the questions because I didn't know the concepts and DS's. Could you answer these 2 questions? 1. Where did you learn how to implement the Data Structures and Algorithms? 2. Also, I'm in a dilemma between using Python and C/C++. Which one would you suggest?
You probably should have learned basic ds+algo stuff in your first or second year of school tbh
Re: Amazon software engineer interview
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting to see how "whiteboard interview" prep mirrors standardized test prep. What is frustrating is that the prep month (?! a month is an eternity) could have been used to contribute to an personal project of choice, which would have said a lot more about the author's ability to program.
>which would have said a lot more about the author's ability to program It's my understanding that such a portfolio would increase your chances of entering an interview pipeline (just as work sample tests are sometimes used as further prerequisites to get into the pipeline), but a company's actual determination of how good you are is always based on the whiteboard, with few if any exceptions.
Spot on. I have an open source portfolio but am always judged instead on my performance during the interview.
Re: Amazon software engineer interview
#60This is totally crazy to me. Why should somebody lose about a month of his life to prepare for the interview? Why should the interview need preparation at all? The whole point of the interview is lost if you read books and prepare for that since you are not tested for your real on-the-work skills but you are tested for your interview-answering skills, memorizing trick questions and solving toy problems!
I think that this whole interview business is bad for both the candidate and the company (that would hire an interview cruncher instead of somebody who can produce work). Of course it is good for everybody else that promotes this kind of thinking (hr people, interview books, interview coaches, recruiters etc).
The whole process as described in this article is offensive to me. I don't want to prove myself by answering trick questions to people whose only skill is asking them! It's too bad we have dropped to that point.
(Please forgive my English - not my native language)