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Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

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Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#301

Post by cs2818 »

davidgay wrote: post #283
electic wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just sends the wrong message. As a company, you are advocating tech that spies on people or in this case the test taker. Overall, it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth that a company would use technology such as this. What else would they be okay with doing once you start working there? Why not do an onsite if you want to make sure of the validity?

Isn't a normal class room in which you take tests while required to be silent and with an instructor/TA/proctor keeping en eye on you very much akin to spying on people? (using people rather than tech, but why is that distinction important?)

I'd be more concerned about the the level of access the monitoring software has to my computer and any services with vulnerabilities it might leave behind.

I think I'd only consider doing this if I used a computer I could wipe completely before and after. Even then the amount of distrust is off-putting.

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#302

Post by Aeolun »

derefr wrote: post #236
jcoffland wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not worth Amazon's time to interview me in person then it's not worth my time to consider them as a potential employer. This is just lazy and they will end up with lower quality candidates because of it.

They will probably fly you out after this, for another stage of the interview. But at the "FizzBuzz stage", they do really need to make sure that the person answering the question is the same person they're later flying out. There are a surprisingly large number of college students who've gotten used to "paying for grades", who attempt things like that.

Maybe they should just conduct fizzbuzz then?

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#303

Post by grogenaut »

jcoffland wrote: post #215
dgritsko wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why not do an onsite if you want to make sure of the validity? Convenience and logistics. Is it worth yours (or Amazon's) time to pay for travel expenses, when applicants could literally be located anywhere? Evidently not, at least not in the early stages of the process.

If it's not worth Amazon's time to interview me in person then it's not worth my time to consider them as a potential employer. This is just lazy and they will end up with lower quality candidates because of it.

the internship IS the interview.

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#304

Post by fattire »

goflyapig wrote: post #256
fattire wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on which definition of "spying" you want to apply, it is spying. Moreover, it is invasive and unsettling. Perhaps most critically, it is a more subtle test for the prospective employee-- are you the kind of person who would comply with a ridiculous request that violates your privacy in the hopes that it will land you a job? I dunno. If I were an employer and an applicant actually installed this without ques…

> Depending on which definition of "spying" you want to apply, it is spying. Without the secrecy aspect, I don't think you can say it's spying by the definition people typically use. If you went to an examination hall and took a real proctored exam [1], would you consider that the proctor was "spying" on you? > Moreover, it is invasive and unsettling. This, I can't argue with. It's hard to pin a definition on what ma…

> Without the secrecy aspect, I don't think you can say it's spying by the definition people typically use.

I mean it in the sense of "I went on a blind date, but my parents sat at the adjacent booth to spy on me". I knew they were there, but it was inappropriate invasion of privacy.

> If you went to an examination hall and took a real proctored exam [1], would you consider that the proctor was "spying" on you?

If I was taking the exam on a personal laptop and was handed mysterious software at the examination hall to install on my machine... (along with images of the inside of my home), then yeah...

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#305

Post by flukus »

Bartweiss wrote: post #279
flukus wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long until the latest phishing scam is promising people job interviews?

Minus one year. I had my resume up on several job sites. I got an email using the name (and a plausible email) for a real, quality software company that sent me a list of HR-type questions. I sent some answers (no PII involved), and they told me I had the job and asked for some bank account information. That obviously set off some alarms, so I followed up with the company and found out that they were being impersonat…

> and they told me I had the job and asked for some bank account information.

Wow. The worst thing is that collecting this information isn't even a red flag when starting a new job, although it's always been done when I get there in person on day 1 for me.

My current job required mountains of background checks and verification, more than enough to do some thorough identity theft. This was setup through a recruiter I met in person though. Imagine how many people they could get if they opened a legit recruitment office for a month?

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#306

Post by [deleted] »

Alex3917 wrote: post #257
mzw_mzw wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US corporations have a multi-hundred year history of using thinly veiled proxies for race as part of their hiring practices. This continues to this day, including in the tech industry. That's a pretty serious accusation, one that could spark a lot of successful lawsuits against those companies -- especially in the current political climate in the states they tend to be located in. Do you have any specific evidence…

Google won't you apply to work there without giving your college GPA, despite the fact that all the academic research, and also their own internal research, shows that GPA doesn't correlate at all with job performance. C.f. what Malcom Gladwell has to say about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLQC3EzDGr4

[deleted]

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#307

Post by flukus »

manacit wrote: post #137
hermitdev wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how such a company would respond if you have neither a webcam or microphone. I certainly don't, at least not on my desktop. Well, that's a lie, I have a microphone, but it has a physical kill switch that is usually off, unless I'm playing a game where I want to communicate verbally.

Fortunately, I still have the e-mail that they originally sent me. They list the requirements as: In order to take the assessments from your home, you will need: * a webcam (either internal or external is fine) * a microphone * a computer that meets the technical requirements and equipment test (most Macs and PCs meet these requirements – Linux and Unix are not compatible) * a basic calculator (please do not plan to…

So straight off the bat their eliminating linux users, who you'd think would be a large part of their target market.

>a basic calculator (please do not plan to use your phone, computer, or graphing calculator)

Who even has a basic calculator anymore?

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#308

Post by paulcole »

staticautomatic wrote: post #223
andrewguenther wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"this doesn't become obvious during the first month of working there" This is a gross oversimplification of the problem. Do you know how difficult it is to fire a person? Do you know how much it costs to hire someone? You've given this person a relocation bonus, possibly put in the work to set up a visa, given the first chunk of a signing bonus....

I'm so tired of the assertion that it's "difficult" to fire someone, even insofar as "difficult" means "HR won't allow it." HR's reasons are stupid, particularly if you're in a so-called "right to work" state. I work on multi-million dollar lawsuits for a living, and in every single employment suit I've worked on involving an individual who was fired from a large organization, that person had already been through som…

How are you defining "right to work" in this context? I thought that had to do with not requiring employees to join a labor union?

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#309

Post by ryandrake »

Wow, can't believe I'm seeing people justifying/defending this--on HN of all places! This is unacceptably invasive, and if this is a glimpse of the future of getting a job, we're all in for a lot of trouble. If you think this kind of information is acceptable to monitor/record during an interview, what on earth do you think is off-limits??

Justifying this as "just to make sure people aren't cheating" is like justifying the police putting a camera in everyone's living room "just to make sure people aren't criminals" or putting a GPS collar on your spouse "just to make sure she's not having an affair". Totally unacceptable.

Re: Software Engineering Internship Amazon Interview Experience

#310

Post by selectiveshift »

electic wrote: post #180
dgritsko wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that these are Proctorio's ( https://proctorio.com/ ) restrictions; they're just a third-party company that Amazon is using to administer the test. I've used a couple of similar systems (e.g. ProctorU - https://www.proctoru.com/ , where a human will actually watch you via webcam(!), or ProctorTrack - http://www.proctortrack.com/ ), and "monitoring" of this sort is pretty much par for the course (no…

It just sends the wrong message. As a company, you are advocating tech that spies on people or in this case the test taker. Overall, it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth that a company would use technology such as this. What else would they be okay with doing once you start working there? Why not do an onsite if you want to make sure of the validity?

Because this is mainly being used for interns. In general, you don't fly in interns for onsite interviews.
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