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Comment by benburleson | Hacker News Reader

Amazon is the king of assessing how much you want to work for the company. The recruiter will place a huge emphasis on nailing their Leadership Principles, and coming up with stories from your work to demonstrate you embody the Principles. They will even tell you that specific interviewers have specific LPs they will probe on, but in the actual interview they ask very veiled questions and you're supposed to know that they're asking about an LP. You're expected to have a story all laid out in the format they expect; it felt very much like a show of how much you're willing to conform to the interview experience they expect, with no interest in actually getting to know you.

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I interviewed with Amazon and I hated the LP bullshit. I hated it so much I gave a ton of feedback and had a very lengthy and illuminating conversation about the process with a friend of mine who works there.

Amazon knows full well what the LP interview experience is like, and it's by design. It's not about "how much you want to work at Amazon", but it's also explicitly, intentionally not about "actually getting to know you".

My friend told me that every Amazon employee has to go through an interviewing training course where they are explicitly told they are not allowed to ask any questions that are not directly related to an LP. In most cases, they don't even get to choose the LP that they are asking about. They are given a specific list of 2-3 LPs, and told that when they come out of the interview room, they must have asked questions about those 3 LPs, taken the answers down as notes, and are explicitly told that they must not ask any other questions or take any other notes.

The explanation I was given is that this is all an intentional attempt to make the interview process as impersonal and consistent across candidates as possible. They intentionally do not want to ask any questions that would lead you to talk about your education or hobbies outside of work, and they intentionally do not want the interviewer coming up with their own, not-pre-approved questions. Apparently they think that this makes it less prone to bias, which I suppose is a good thing in theory, but in my opinion, the execution resulted in a piss-poor experience as a candidate.

Apparently it isn't fun for the interviewers, either. My recruiter warned me that my interviewers would likely be rushed, impersonal, and focused entirely on recording notes about our conversation, because apparently if you are designated as an interviewer you have very strict quotas on the amounts of notes you have to take, and then as soon as the interview is over you have to rush immediately to another interview where you again have to take a certain amount of notes. The entire process sounds awful for everyone involved.

It sucks that you (and numerous others in this thread) have had a bad experience.

As an ex-Amazonian that did my fair share of interviewing, I can share additional context on some of the above:

* Tardiness and just the general unprofessional handling of someone being interviewed: At least in the area I worked this would have been unacceptable and the interviewer would have had a very uncomfortable conversation with their leaders. I can't imagine a repeat offender lasting long. There was a huge emphasis placed on the importance of the hiring process, the importance of doing it well, and that finding the right people was about the most important thing to be doing. Obviously at a company of >700k people it's not going to be a consistent experience across the board. * I learnt this from various forums before I attended my own interview so it's not exactly a company secret: but yes, each interviewer is told the LPs they'll be asked to assess. You're expected to spend the full 55-60mins asking questions on those LPs to maximise the change the person gets the job. It's too easy to burn 20mins talking about hobbies and ultimately that's not going to help the candidate get the job. Even worse is that if there's suddenly some shared interest and experience that conversation derails into enjoyable but more unproductive conversation. The feedback skews to "I like this person" and is filled with bias vs "here is the examples for why they'll be successful here". * The standard set of questions is a leveller to give everyone a consistent experience and try to reduce the likelihood that someone gets a job just because they interview well. * Likewise the seemingly unrelenting questioning that's effectively trying to gauge examples for just 1-2 LPs in my experience provides a fairer experience to most other alternatives I've experienced. People with pre-canned answers that they're able to spin nicely start to fumble when people want to keep digging into the details on the same thing for more than 5mins. Conversely people who struggle to think of the right words off the top of their head, or are especially modest about their accomplishments, don't immediately suffer. They're given a time and space, and ideally a lot of guidance, to expand on things. * There's no quota the amount of notes you need to take. However, the debrief for every single interview loop I was part of was always 30-60mins. You don't get to show up with some vague feelings about what the next step is. You need to come with an opinion, with the evidence to support it, and not waste every other interviewers time. If you disagree with another interviewer you need to be able to point at the specific evidence you have either for or against the candidate. We'd often be told "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". You needed the evidence for whatever point you wanted to make, otherwise you've just wasted the candidates time. * The rigour in the post-interview process and debate, which builds upon the foundation of all of the above activities, is ultimately what it's in service of IMO. Every candidate gets case heard with all of the most compelling evidence that can be provided. I've been involved in debriefs where all but one interviewer came with a "not inclined/do not hire" decision. The discussion and debate that ensued and the recalibration from the collective notes ultimately flipped everyone to a hire. I'm pretty sure every other company I've worked at would have had such a debrief be over and done with in a couple of minutes and we'd move on to the next interviews. * The other part of this that's not always immediately obvious is it's a pretty binary assessment. You can either do the job or you can't. If you can, as determined by the debrief, you get an offer. So first through successfully wins. There's no stack ranking candidates against each other and trying to apply some subjective assessment of who is in a relative sense the "best". Which is again why there's such a strong emphasis on consistency, removing bias,

It's definitely not perfect. It can skew very heavy towards feeling impersonal and like the candidate is being interrogated for an entire day. The thing I missed most about vs other places I've worked was the interrogation feeling like a reinforcement of the power imbalance inherent in a job interview vs levelling the experience and making it just as much for the candidate "would I want to work here/with these people?". But on balance it's probably the most consistent and fairest approach I've experienced (when properly executed, which it wasn't for you, so I'm sorry you saw the worst of it).

I don’t understand what is wrong with hiring someone the interviewer likes. I can see there may be racism, misogyny etc at play here. But setting that aside for a second, if people like each other, all other problems can be solved much more easily.

Because you end up hiring likeable rather than competent people. And you can’t just “set aside all that for a second”. You’ve made a bad hire, at the expense of hiring someone else who could have actually done the job.

also liking is usually "liking people like me" which is code for a lot of bias

Because liking someone doesn’t mean they can do the job. Just because you’re excited about a problem domain and someone else seems to also be excited doesn’t mean the can or will do the job well. They probe for past examples of you doing a job well because it’s a proxy for you doing a future job well. They acknowledge any interview process is imperfect but they also decided randomly pointing at resumes and saying “tell me about X” either doesn’t correlate or correlates negatively. This is in addition to the bias problem which was the other big reason they gave.

I mean, read between the lines. The company doesn't trust that the interviewers' intuition is good enough to beat their formal process.

(And they're probably right)

Well, you’ve also touched on one of the aspects of life at Amazon that isn’t one of the LPs: Mechanisms are better than intentions.

Good intentions fail at some point, even when people have the best of intentions. Being distracted. Trying to do too much. Whatever. Where possible it’s better to design the environment and system so that the right things occur (or are more likely to occur) irrespective of an individuals good intentions.

So yes, you’re right!

When I interviewed at Amazon last time, I paused all my other work, even my full time job, to focus on it.

Wasn't well treated at interview day (people forgot me in a room for several hours for example, also had interviewers arrive late, among other issues), and probably didn't pass because there was some questions about LP that I couldn't answer, basically all interviewers without exception asked the same question on how I handled an issue in a large team, except I never worked in a large team, whenever I told them that, they would ask the same question, but worded differently.

It became obvious to me that I should have lied, should have written before going to the interview some fictional stories that I could use to answer the LP questions.

Amazon's a fucking pit of vipers anyway, dude, you're better off. If your potential future teammates were so busy putting out fires that they couldn't meet up with you on time, that team was probably in bad shape too

Weird but fascinating. That question suggests:

1. They have a lot of problems with people who come and can't get stuff done in a giant organization

2. They don't try to teach newcomers how to get stuff done in a giant organization. Which would be the obvious answer to those problems.

I'm admittedly stretching a little, but I find more often than not the kinds of questions people ask tell you a lot about what they're trying to select for. (Or, for a lot of orgs, that they have no idea what they're trying to select for.)

I personally know many people who conduct interviews, provide interview feedback, and make hiring decisions at Amazon. None of them operate the way you're describing. There's no "gotcha" as far as making you guess what LP they are trying to get at, or conforming to the Amazon borg. They are simply evaluating you based on your work accomplishments and aptitude, as demonstrated by the projects and experiences you choose to talk about.

Regarding the LP interview format itself, it's just a vanilla Behavioral Interview. See: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/behavioral-job-interviews-.... It's becoming increasingly uncommon in tech (because people are preferring whiteboard coding instead), but it's one of the most common interview formats you'll see in most white collar professions.

A counterpoint: I work with a lot of ex-Amazon employees who continue to conduct interviews exactly in this way. Even my own interview, if I hadn't prepped a story for each of the LPs, I would've bombed.

> Even my own interview, if I hadn't prepped a story for each of the LPs, I would've bombed.

Not denying this part. Candidates at most companies are openly advised about the Behavioral Interview format, and told to come prepared with a collection of stories. Even Google's previous head-of-HR tells all job-seekers to do exactly this (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/win-every-interview-6-steps-l...). This isn't unique to Amazon in any way, and Amazon might actually be better because they give you very strong hints as to what the questions will be, instead of expecting you to know this implicitly.

My previous comment was mostly responding to stuff like "ask very veiled questions and you're supposed to know that they're asking about an LP" and drinking the Amazon kool-aid.

I'm not sure what I can say other than, maybe I blacked out during my interviews, but I don't remember any interviewer at Amazon asking anything remotely straightforward about any of the LPs.

Maybe it was the group I interviewed with? I do know the position had been open for many months, so maybe they were just terrible interviewers.

> Regarding the LP interview format itself, it's just a vanilla Behavioral Interview.

Not when I interviewed with Amazon. Most companies don't tell you which questions you may be asked about. In my Amazon interview, the questions were directly from the LP. Not disguised as such. Not even rephrased. Example: "Tell me about a time you disconfirmed a belief." This may be a good thing in that it helps the candidate prepare, but it's a bad thing in that often the interviewers are just following a script.

I've never had a behavioral interview that was not a conversation. Only at Amazon was it a "drill". Rapid fire questions, with little to no scope for exploring a topic. It wasn't an interview, it was an interrogation, mostly phrased to put me on the defensive.

> Even Google's previous head-of-HR tells all job-seekers to do exactly this

I agree it's good to come prepared with a bunch of stories. However, the behavioral interview I had at Google was nothing like that at Amazon. It was actually a 2-way conversation.

> Most companies don't tell you which questions you may be asked about. In my Amazon interview, the questions were directly from the LP. Not disguised as such. Not even rephrased

The fact that Amazon told you what questions you'll be asked, whereas other companies don't, most people would say that is more interviewee-friendly. I certainly wouldn't see that as a negative.

Funny enough, the other commenter had the exact opposite experience as you. "I don't remember any interviewer at Amazon asking anything remotely straightforward about any of the LPs". Just goes to show that YMMV.

> Only at Amazon was it a "drill". Rapid fire questions, with little to no scope for exploring a topic. It wasn't an interview, it was an interrogation, mostly phrased to put me on the defensive.

Sounds like you had some bad interviewers. That certainly doesn't excuse Amazon for not better training their interviewers, but what you experienced is a bug not a feature.

This corroborates my experience interviewing at Amazon. Fortunately the recruiter prepped me well on what to expect and the LPs I should study. I was happy to "study for the test", and the interview went well. They even allowed me to bring a "cheat sheet" with notes about the stories I planned to tell, and I made myself a little index mapping stories -> LPs and vice versa. It was great practice and I carried those techniques (keeping the cheat sheet in my head) to other interviews, even though other companies don't put quite as much emphasis on LPs as Amazon does.

The questions didn't seem too veiled, but maybe that's because I knew what to expect.

>They even allowed me to bring a "cheat sheet" with notes about the stories I planned to tell

Is this unusual in your experience? I don't think I've ever been to a job interview where I didn't bring along a notepad where I had prewritten talking points, and also used it to take notes during the interview. I thought this was standard.

This approach also works realy good when interviewing with other companies. I used the STAR [0] principle everytime after Amazon, it almost always worked. Having interviewed a couple of people at Amazon myself definetly helped.

[0] Situation - Task - Action - result, basically your story tellling format for Amazon interviews. Back the day it was even covered on their interview prep page.

STAR is not just for Amazon. It's a great way to answer "behavioral questions" at any company. On the other side of the table, as an interviewer, I can recognize the STAR format instantly and am very appreciative that the candidate has taken the time to structure his or her answer in this easy-to-digest way.

Also, and I don't know if there is a nice acronym for it, but I like the formula where you:

1. Say what you're going to say

2. Say it

3. Say what you said

So if the question is "Tell me about some things you consider when you need to do task ABC," You structure your response like this:

"I'm going to describe the top three things I consider. 1. Foo. [Details here]. 2. Bar. [Details here]. 3. Baz. [Details here]. In summary, Foo, Bar, and Baz are the things I consider in that situation."

Is a much better response than unstructured word salad that contains the same detailed content but jumbles it all together and kind of trails off, leaving the interviewer wondering if the candidate is done talking.

Like that one, too!

Remind me not to interview for that (those) team(s). I am really the type of person that dislike drinking corporate koolaid, or any type of slogans or political line that government or media otherwise pushes. That basically sounds like half way to a cult.

To be honest, it does feel cult-ish from the outside. But as some other commenters have pointed out, they have their reasons, ideally to remove bias from hiring process.

is there a centralized place with information like this but for other companies as well?

Glassdoor? Maybe, not sure if that is exactly what you are looking for..

I mean, yeah. They have a review(s) section for people who used to work there, and a section on interviews too.

Dig up some fake creds on BugMeNot and poke around Glassdoor

Not that I'm aware of, because it's a difficult problem. First off, reports need to be anonymous to prevent employer retaliation, but if they're anonymous, then how can the information be verified? Even if it's verified, without extensive input, it's impossible to say if the details of someone's experience is the norm for the company or just about that one part of the org.

Then finally, happy people generally don't go out an write a huge essay on why things are fine. unhappy people will go on-and-on about every bad thing to anyone who listens.

Thus, we're left with disorganized reports on various sites to glean culture. Eg HN comments on the story about Amazon suing Brian Hall. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23461326

For those looking to move within the job market, it would be worth it to talk to a tech recruiter for a few hours who's job it is, is to know company cultures. (Traditionally, if you, the new employee that they managed to get into a company with a bad fit, leaves before 90-days are up, they don't get paid.)

> it would be worth it to talk to a tech recruiter

IMO this is very good advice. Having been on both sides of the equation, I think a good tech recruiter (emphasis on good) brings a huge value to the process. As a hiring manager, I had one guy I knew I could rely on to bring me really qualified candidates every time. His own filter was excellent, and he only brought me people that were a good fit. I almost didn't need to interview them. Other recruiters were terrible, one even sent me a candidate who had faked their first phone screen so they weren't even remotely qualified for the job.

That is the guy you want to know. He has earned his reputation. And it cuts both ways, too -- his success isn't just when the company is happy with him, but when candidates are too -- all the best ones are his clients, after all.

Blind[0] is a message board with a lot of content focused on FAANG interviewing.

https://www.teamblind.com/

glassdoor has a very good anonymous feedback system for interview experience

I'm pretty sick of Amazon recruiters.

They often initiate contact. I respond. And they don't respond back.

Even worse is when they do. Several times in the past year I had a back and forth with some recruiters, did an online and/or phone screen, and they said "OK, you've passed all the screens, and we're ready to schedule you for an on-site. You'll get a call to schedule it." I never get the call and the recruiter stops responding.

Then the next recruiter that talks to me asks "I see you were ready for an on site but didn't have any. What happened - did you withdraw?"

My response has always been "You tell me. The recruiter stopped responding to me."

This is always followed by profuse apologies. And then it happens again.

A friend of mine suggested I tell them "Can you ask the previous recruiter, and once you find out put it on my account?"

A few days ago I got this message from an Amazon recruiter (his first contact with me). After the initial introductions on who he is, etc:

---------------

Good Afternoon, I hope that this message finds you well and with an opened mind. My name is * and I am a Recruiter with Amazon’s Worldwide Operations – HR team We have an immediate need for a Software Development Engineer (SDE) with Amazon. Your background looks like a really good fit. I'd like to see if the role aligns with your next career move.

We currently have multiple locations; Seattle, Washington and REMOTE, we will provide relocation assistance if applicable.

I have included a link to the full job descriptions to give you more details on the team and position.

If you would like to move forward in the interview process, please provide answers to the intake questions down below and I’ll follow up with you on next steps. If you have an up to date resume please send that as well.

(1) The best phone number AND email to contact you?

(2) Do you have any pending offers at this time and, if yes, what the deadlines are?

(3) Do you need, or will you need in the future, any immigration-related support or sponsorship from Amazon in order to begin or continue employment with Amazon and when does your sponsorship expire?

(4) Are you open to relocation?

(5) What are your salary requirements(range)?

(6)What coding language do you have the most experience with?

(7)Do you have experience using Cloud Platforms(AWS, MS Azure, Google Cloud)?

(8) Have you recently been in contact with someone at Amazon?

(9) Is most of your experience Back-End or Front-end and what Percentage?

(10) Do you have experience with System Design and how many years?

(11) Scale 1-5(5 being the best) how comfortable are you with Data Structures and Algorithms

For some reason if you are happily employed but know of someone with a similar skill set please send them my information.

Thanks

---------------

So let me guess: I'll spend the time responding to all his questions, and never hear from him again. Sorry, not bothering.

I never get the call and the recruiter stops responding.

I expect Amazon has a high turnover of recruiters too.

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