<story><title>My Interviews with Amazon</title><url>https://thesocietea.org/2016/07/my-interviews-with-amazon/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sgk284</author><text>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).&lt;p&gt;What you experienced is part of their experiment in figuring out how to make this work. They&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;Apologies for the lack of citation but I don&amp;#x27;t believe this is something Amazon has spoken publicly about.</text></item><item><author>Bartweiss</author><text>Interestingly, I opened the Amazon door as a new dev and found something very different than what this post describes.&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;independent proof of competence&amp;quot; than &amp;quot;friendly programming task to evaluate you&amp;quot;.  I was expected to be on webcam the entire time to verify identity and prevent cheating.  No joke about the &lt;i&gt;entire time&lt;/i&gt; part - there was a reminder to get any water or office supplies I would need before sitting down, because the interview would be terminated if I left the frame of the cam.&lt;p&gt;Between the blind hostility of that opener and the meat-grinder rep, I passed without interviewing (and passed with the next Amazon recruiter shortly after, who had no idea they&amp;#x27;d pinged me before).  I&amp;#x27;m sure this routine is reserved for new grads, and the weird &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t lean out of frame&amp;quot; stuff seemed to be from some interview-management third party, but it was still the most stilted process I&amp;#x27;ve seen from an actual software company.</text></item><item><author>larrik</author><text>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 &amp;#x27;friends don&amp;#x27;t let friends work for Amazon&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn&amp;#x27;t as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don&amp;#x27;t know better. This is as someone completely on the outside who&amp;#x27;s only heard stories, though. When I brought this up to one recruiter a few years ago, they basically acknowledged the reputation and their intent to improve.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps unlike HN, I&amp;#x27;ve never seriously considered joining a mega-corporation like Google, Facebook, or Amazon. I just don&amp;#x27;t see the appeal, nor do I want to work in a city (SV, Seattle, NYC, or otherwise).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>arunpn123</author><text>Anecdotal evidence: I know some new grads who took this test when Amazon rolled out this automated form of hiring 2 years back. There were several crazy things with this process.. the questions in the test were changed only once a week and they did actually make offers to new grads after just the 3 hour online test. In dorm rooms where a bunch of students are applying for jobs at the same time, news travels fast. In short, there are a whole bunch of people working at Amazon who got their jobs by just typing out answers to questions they memorized.</text></comment>
<story><title>My Interviews with Amazon</title><url>https://thesocietea.org/2016/07/my-interviews-with-amazon/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sgk284</author><text>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).&lt;p&gt;What you experienced is part of their experiment in figuring out how to make this work. They&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;Apologies for the lack of citation but I don&amp;#x27;t believe this is something Amazon has spoken publicly about.</text></item><item><author>Bartweiss</author><text>Interestingly, I opened the Amazon door as a new dev and found something very different than what this post describes.&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;independent proof of competence&amp;quot; than &amp;quot;friendly programming task to evaluate you&amp;quot;.  I was expected to be on webcam the entire time to verify identity and prevent cheating.  No joke about the &lt;i&gt;entire time&lt;/i&gt; part - there was a reminder to get any water or office supplies I would need before sitting down, because the interview would be terminated if I left the frame of the cam.&lt;p&gt;Between the blind hostility of that opener and the meat-grinder rep, I passed without interviewing (and passed with the next Amazon recruiter shortly after, who had no idea they&amp;#x27;d pinged me before).  I&amp;#x27;m sure this routine is reserved for new grads, and the weird &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t lean out of frame&amp;quot; stuff seemed to be from some interview-management third party, but it was still the most stilted process I&amp;#x27;ve seen from an actual software company.</text></item><item><author>larrik</author><text>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 &amp;#x27;friends don&amp;#x27;t let friends work for Amazon&amp;#x27;.&lt;p&gt;Amazon seems like a meat grinder, where getting hired isn&amp;#x27;t as hard as it seems, and they just burn through young people who don&amp;#x27;t know better. This is as someone completely on the outside who&amp;#x27;s only heard stories, though. When I brought this up to one recruiter a few years ago, they basically acknowledged the reputation and their intent to improve.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps unlike HN, I&amp;#x27;ve never seriously considered joining a mega-corporation like Google, Facebook, or Amazon. I just don&amp;#x27;t see the appeal, nor do I want to work in a city (SV, Seattle, NYC, or otherwise).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hackcasual</author><text>Ex amazonian here. About 5 years ago I was invited to beta test an online automated coding system, the stated goal of which was that upon passing, you would be given an offer for an SDE1 position. No webcam stuff, just checking your coding solutions. I don&amp;#x27;t believe that ever rolled out in that state.</text></comment>