Unfortunately, my interview process with Amazon was yet another disappointing experience.
After I caught COVID, I asked the recruiter to postpone the interview by a week. The recruiter agreed, but after that, I never heard back despite multiple follow-ups. Two weeks later, I finally received a brief message saying they had already hired someone else. It was clear that if you get sick or face an emergency, Amazon simply ignores you. There was no consideration or respect for a candidate’s situation.
Later, the same recruiter reached out with another position and encouraged me to apply. I reviewed the job description, and it seemed fine. After a few weeks, they confirmed the interview and told me the interviewers would be from the U.K., Australia, and Europe. I was asked to provide time slots between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. my time — which made no sense, because the position and the team were both based in Seattle. The time zone mismatch made scheduling extremely difficult, and realistically, no candidate can be mentally sharp for a technical interview at 7 a.m.
After a lot of back and forth, the interview finally happened. During the session with the hiring manager, I realized that the job description had been completely misleading. The posting mentioned that only about 20% of the role involved endpoint security, but the manager told me that 80% of the position focused on that area. The recruiter had never once discussed these details with me, nor explained what kind of candidate the manager was actually looking for.
In the end, I spent hours preparing for the wrong type of interview. The recruiter showed zero knowledge of the position and didn’t bother to align expectations. It’s the most disorganized and careless hiring process I’ve ever seen — and unfortunately, it reflects poorly on Amazon as a company.