Ask HN: Any advice for first FAANG interview? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Any advice for first FAANG interview?

9 pointspkdpic15 comments

Never done it before but enjoying the challenge so far. Wondering what advice folks might have. Its for an AWS ~2yr experience position.

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For Amazon/AWS make sure to read up on and fully understand various "Amazon Leadership Principles". For each principle try to come up with examples in your life where you have exhibited that (prepare that before the interview). In the behavioral type questions try to frame your answers as displaying one or more of these "leadership principles" but don't make it obvious that that's what you are doing. For example talk about how you went above and beyond to help out a customer but don't say "I exhibited 'Customer Obsession' leadership principle when I did x, y and z" unless the interviewer referenced Leadership Principles explicitly.

Yes it sounds a bit culty but many interviewers I used to work with put a ton of weight in these principles and the hiring process is designed to seriously consider them (they are not an afterthought). You wanna have these down pat and is probably the lowest effort way you can increase your odds. 2 hrs studying and considering these will likely go farther than doing 2 LeetCode practice questions during that time period.

For anything AWS related, try to gather as many situations from the past which represent "qualities" they are looking for, and focus on your role in them.

You can answer all their questions with flying colours, but if you don't have "situations" handy, it won't matter.

I worked at Lab126 for 7yrs and interviewed many. Someone mentioned "Leadership Principles" AMZN lives and dies by that but other than using key words, create your own successful stories around few of those principles.

Also most of it is behavior questioning so key up on that.

People aren't wrong about Amzn for the most part but there are good dept/mgrs as well as sh*tty ones. Mostly money power fame driven, nothing more. No diff than any other jerks in other companies. And I've worked in all but one of the FAANG/M.

I actually agree with all of these company's motto of driving the 1yr hires to the ground. Why? because although they get burnt out, they get paid well, keep sign on bonuses but the pay off for the company? Your dedication to prove your worth by working 10x harder 18hrs a day for a year. Can't beat that. I say that's actually a decent biz model in IMHO. Just to clarify in the bayarea, your 1st year, you would be walking away with some north of $250k base+sign on+1st yr vesting.

Not to discourage you, but just so you are aware of what you’re getting into, Amazon is notoriously known for their Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). Every review cycle, you are ranked against your peers, and managers have to “PIP” a percentage of the team. Usually it’s the bottom 10%, though I’ve been hearing rumors that now it’s bottom 15%. Because of this quota, managers are forced to “fire” engineers even if they have a super star team, or unless they hire to fire, which is unfortunate but common thing at Amazon. Amazon is a great company and just like any other company, YMMV, but I, along with several of my friends, had the most stressful, worst time of our lives while working at Amazon. Working 10-12 hour days and weekends was very common. YMMV, so negotiate wisely!

The first part about PIP is bs. No one on any of my teams got pipped and I know of only 1 person that I know who got pip'd (in my 5+ years there). No one is forcing managers to fire engineers. Most teams can't fill their headcount and are constantly short-staffed with the turnover so even if for some reason amazon wanted to "fire" 10% of the people on each team it doesn't make sense for them to do so from a business perspective as none of the projects/goals would be met if they did that.

The only accurate part is the last part where you said that it can be stressful and there are sometimes long hours but working weekends is not "common" unless you are oncall and even when you are oncall on most teams you likely won't even be paged.

Interesting. I think this is the first time ever heard someone talk positively about the place.

I actually know a lot of PiP used. It's not the bottom 10% but it's almost always personal from mgmt to whoever they want out wo getting sued for wrongful termination. The so called get rid of the bottom "10%" is more through natural attrition via retasked to do demoralizing work. Yeah when you work for some bad blood. They will make your life a living hell.

Also not so much long hours bc you do that elsewhere too but it's more of high pressure to get things done even when things that don't work isn't your area to deal it. That's one of their most coveted principles: bias for action.

"Amazon is a great company"

This seems to conflict with every other sentence in your post.

Practice mock interviews. Solving a leetcode problem in a computer is a little different that doing in an interview. In the interview, you will feel nervous, anxious, and you will need to explain your thought process while you solve the problem. Also for Amazon, you also need to prepare for the behavioral interview questions. Read their leadership principles and prepare answers for the most important ones.

The interview is designed to collect "data points". Meaning that hire decisions hinge of real examples of you showing LPs. So have a new story for each LP, and dont repeat stories. If this is for L5, the leveling of your LPs will be considered, you need to show the correct amount of scope.

Might be said before, for other kind of jobs. It's something that the interviewer would really appreciate. A good advice to know if the interview is for F, A, A, N, or G.

Can't speak to AWS, but hop on Glassdoor/Blind to get general style tips. FAANG typically have very structured interviews, and knowing that structure can give you a big boost.

Good luck!

Frankly, I wouldn't work for AWS based on how I hear they treat people. Either way, it might be good to have a contingency interview with a different company.

Leetcode, some system design, and leadership principles. Most important principle is Customer Obsession, 2nd most important is Deliver Results.

For that level at Amazon, practice Leetcode Medium. There's usually a system design question so practice those as well.

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