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My Interviews with Amazon

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Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#51

Post by cydonian_monk »

Bartweiss wrote: post #7
larrik wrote: post #3

Interesting, I get pestered by them constantly, and never actually considered going for it. For one thing, the common sentiment on HN seems to be 'friends don't let friends work for Amazon'. Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn't as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don't know better. This is as someone completely on the outside who's only heard stories, though. When I…

Interestingly, I opened the Amazon door as a new dev and found something very different than what this post describes. The first step - before speaking to anyone about my background or interest - was going to be an intensive, one-hour coding session. It looked like it would be more "independent proof of competence" than "friendly programming task to evaluate you". I was expected to be on webcam the entire time to ver…

I danced with Amazon once (casually, I have zero desire to move to a Pacific Coast state), and had a similar "first step" experience, just with no webcam. Had they asked me to code on a webcam I too would've refused. At this point I don't recall if it was CollabEdit, InterviewStreet, or something similar (it's been some time and I deleted the emails), but I remember that if I tabbed out of the interview page at any time I would instantly fail it. And here I thought that was bad.... Leaning out of frame fails you? Wow.

For comparison's sake I'm an experienced dev and have been hacking on embedded Linux stuff for more than a decade, though I have doubts that's the trigger for "webcam or not."

Was there any data retention period mentioned regarding your interview? Do they keep those videos forever, or are they discarded as soon as they're reviewed (assuming they're not live)?

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#52

Post by sgk284 »

Bartweiss wrote: post #7
larrik wrote: post #3

Interesting, I get pestered by them constantly, and never actually considered going for it. For one thing, the common sentiment on HN seems to be 'friends don't let friends work for Amazon'. Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn't as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don't know better. This is as someone completely on the outside who's only heard stories, though. When I…

Interestingly, I opened the Amazon door as a new dev and found something very different than what this post describes. The first step - before speaking to anyone about my background or interest - was going to be an intensive, one-hour coding session. It looked like it would be more "independent proof of competence" than "friendly programming task to evaluate you". I was expected to be on webcam the entire time to ver…

Bezos set a mandate to HR a few years ago that he wanted them to be able to hire a new grad without ever needing to speak to a human engineer. That is, he wants the entire interview process automated (specifically for new grads, at least for now).

What you experienced is part of their experiment in figuring out how to make this work. They've got a number of variations of interviews going on right now. I believe this is so that they can scale up as rapidly as they need to.

Apologies for the lack of citation but I don't believe this is something Amazon has spoken publicly about.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#53

Post by kentosi »

hellogoodbyeeee wrote: post #12

I'm a little confused. The recruiter said that $170-$200k was an acceptable range. Then they offered him the position for significantly less than that. I don't understand why he even considered the offer. I would have been really upset that they wasted my time with a bait and switch. Am wrong for feeling that way? Are there other factors to consider?

I was going to say the same thing. I would be infuriated, considering this to be another recruiter ploy to make commission.

If they clearly can't afford your salary range then this should be made upfront.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#54

Post by ryandrake »

ivraatiems wrote: post #25
perspectivep wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if you make $60,000 in a small midwestern town, that's the same as making $120k in Seattle or the Bay Area. Not true at all. I made almost that exact jump when moving from the Midwest to Seattle. You're forgetting things like raises, bonuses, and 401(k) matching that are a % of your salary. Sign-on bonuses and stock benefits are common out here but rare in the Midwest. Plus, even if your housing cost doubles, ot…

> Plus, even if your housing cost doubles, other expenses don't. Food costs, gas, vacations, and everything on Amazon is the same. I actually spend a lot less on transportation because I can take public transit instead of a car. We were able to sell one of our cars too. That's actually not true. I'm referring to cost-of-living, which includes housing, gas, food, etc. All the things you list. Here's a calculator you c…

Cost-of-living is only one cost to consider.

I also used to work in Nowhere, USA and now work in the Bay Area. While my "cost of living as a percent of salary" is much higher, so is my "salary minus cost of living" which is a more important measurement. To put it into concrete hypothetical terms:

Person A lives in rural Iowa, makes $50K a year after taxes, and their cost of living items (housing, gas, food, etc.) add up to $20K. Person B lives in the city, makes $100K a year after taxes, and their cost of living items add up to $60K. All other things being equal (I know, that's a stretch), who's doing better?

One school of thought is that A is better off because while they're making half the salary, their cost of living is 1/3rd. My school of though says that B is better off because he has $10K more to do things that cost the same as they do for person A: Investment, travel, Netflix, anything you buy on Amazon, whatever.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#55

Post by johnwheeler »

dgemm wrote: post #26
johnwheeler wrote: post #17

It's wasteful for companies to focus so much on implementing data structures for front-end coding jobs when they're packaged commodities nowadays. If you're going to be building search engines or whatever, OK. And, time complexity questions should be asked. But chances are, the broad majority will end up doing line of business apps that require three data structures of which you will never write a better version than…

> If you're going to be building search engines or whatever, OK. But this one does build search engines or whatever.

Please don't be condescending.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#56

Post by collyw »

dominotw wrote: post #24
johnwheeler wrote: post #17

It's wasteful for companies to focus so much on implementing data structures for front-end coding jobs when they're packaged commodities nowadays. If you're going to be building search engines or whatever, OK. And, time complexity questions should be asked. But chances are, the broad majority will end up doing line of business apps that require three data structures of which you will never write a better version than…

but programmer has to know what ds/algorithm to choose, of course you can look up complexities and stuff but it doesn't help in cases where performance tuning of caches ect is necessary. you have to understand what that particular algorithm/ds is actually doing to tune it properly.

I learned that sort of stuff 15 years ago. By now it is forgotten, but I am perfectly capable of reading up on stuff and relearning it. I learn new stuff all the time in this line of work.

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#57

Post by rattray »

ryanlm wrote: post #11
larrik wrote: post #3

Interesting, I get pestered by them constantly, and never actually considered going for it. For one thing, the common sentiment on HN seems to be 'friends don't let friends work for Amazon'. Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn't as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don't know better. This is as someone completely on the outside who's only heard stories, though. When I…

I'll work for them in a heartbeat. Seriously, I want to work somewhere where I'm never bored, and can take part in conversations, etc. It seems like a good place for an ambitious new grad for a few years. If there are any Amazon employees reading this, please reach out!

> I want to work somewhere where I'm never bored, and can take part in conversations, etc.

Try a startup?

Re: My Interviews with Amazon

#60

Post by segmondy »

nogridbag wrote: post #22
johnwheeler wrote: post #17

It's wasteful for companies to focus so much on implementing data structures for front-end coding jobs when they're packaged commodities nowadays. If you're going to be building search engines or whatever, OK. And, time complexity questions should be asked. But chances are, the broad majority will end up doing line of business apps that require three data structures of which you will never write a better version than…

I was actually quite surprised the questions were relatively basic (and web-dev focused) for a position with the AWS team.

Perhaps he would be working on the front end, have you seen the frontend for AWS? Nothing fancy!
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