I Did 850 Tech Interviews For Amazon And I Learned This
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- čas přidán 29. 04. 2023
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"Don't get caught playing the wrong game because you think the world should be a different way." That's some profound stuff right there that applies well outside just interviewing!
I think this is the hardest lesson to learn. To understand that the companies have their own dynamics and if you wanna work for them you have to make it through them.
Pavlov's dog thought this. Elon Musk and Jeff Besos ironically didnt.
It's weird how there is so much turnover in big tech, but they are so confident in their interview process.
They will never understand.
Sttttttack rankinggggggg time 🎉🎉🎉🎉 Amazon favorite thing to do
thats the secret- high turnover means they have to run the interview phase more often.
(i may or may not be talking out of my ass)
Turnover has no link to interview process though. Turnover happens because of a stressful work culture, not some interview process
@@the100thtimelord2 i was just trying to say that high turnover rates means an individual is more likely to be back on the job market, taking more interviews. My statement is purely conjecture with no evidence or stats to back it up, so take that how you want.
As a software engineer that has been doing this a while now. I would actually not take much of this advice. Point 1 is valid to _some_ degree, but it also promotes a scattergun approach which can easily reduce your interviewing skills. Focus on what makes _you_ good, if the company doesnt like it, then dont worry, move onto the the next "right fit" role. Point 2.. is frustrating, because in my experience this is just not true. Especially in tech interviews, and _especially_ in Amazon interviews. In fact, Amazon interviews are some of the worst Ive been involved with - after going through 7 different interviews for one role (it was a fairly senior tech position) the last interview (7th) was talking about all these types of "fluffy" project discussions, I asked some hard target type of "what will I actually be doing" and they failed to talk in real terms. So I told them in the interview, I was no longer interested. During these interviews, I tried and tried to get details on the role, but kept getting deferred - "Oh that will be when you interview with the line manager". This cost me over 3 months of absolute waste of time. I had a similar occurrence when interviewing with MS with a senior tech role in Xbox division. Bigger companies, have _large_ HR processes, and it is _rare_ to find the right person, its more to keep HR people employed.
Having hired many people myself (somewhere over 100 interviews) it is actually a fairly easy process (imho), its just that the tech industry rarely wants to admit it, the right person is just not about their skills, their background, or their demeanor in an interview. Its about if they have two key attributes: motivation and is a team player.
A person with great motivation and is a concerted team player means you can pretty much build anything you want. Get a group of these people together, you can literally build anything. For the longest time (in my 20's and 30's) I believed in the "tech and languages" were the key to solving problems. Nope. It isnt. Its people and their want to be with other highly motivated people to build solutions. And this is actually not common, because we teach in Uni and Schools almost the polar opposite.
The last point kind of talks about this, but sadly its still looking at the wrong attributes. I could care less about peoples technical abilities, you can _always_ teach that with a motivated person and in fact the rate of change of tech in any software group is very fast these days. So having skills of old tech is not really as useful as many make it out to be.
Anyway.. that's my take. Beware this videos advice..
How would one go about effectively communicating their attributes as a team player and their earnest motivation?
@@priestesslucy3299 Various forms (many people ascertain peoples honesty and ability using many methods). Myself, I talk to them about their passions, what they love to do, do they involve themselves with others when they do so. Why their passion is so. What drives them to it. And their experience with others and how they define a good team. Fairly simple things, but when asked in a meaningful way (ie, people arent feeling interrogated - like most interviews go) and especially when they are comfortable, you get quite good results. You can see the fakers from a mile away, simply because they dont have these things, these are not learnt, these are what makes a person tick.
Hope that helps. I certainly dont know the answers.. as I said, I think theres probably dozens of ways to determine these factors. But in my experience when I got to choose a team using these methods (I was usually on a panel when hiring, and nearly always had a bunch of 'traditionalists' limiting the final choice) the team would be outstanding and we would have a great time at work. Imho, if you spend over 2/3rds of your awake life at work, it should be enjoyable.
I don't have your level of experience but I couldn't agree more. IMO the human resources folks have overly complicated the process. At the end of the day people are people and the pareto principle will come into play.
@@GroverAU I was asking about the other direction.
About how to effectively convey those attributes to a prospective employer who might not know to ask questions that drive in that direction.
@@priestesslucy3299 Sorry for the misunderstanding. Team work and motivation are fairly easily shown as with the questions you can provide the same in prompts of experience, and interest. For example you might talk about your motivation in your github projects, and how you work with multiple people to achieve outcomes in those projects. This is a fairly simple example and you can 'slot' that in when they ask things like "What other software engineering activities do you partake in outside of work hours?" - this kind of question is extremely common in interviews. Obviously there are many other ways to articulate this too. Hope that helps.
As a side note. I would not expect much focus on teamwork and motivation as primary factors in hiring - I personally think they should be, but you will find it very rare. A good company will look at these attributes with more interest. So it might be a nice what to determine if the company is the type of place you want to be. :)
Thank you. I have interviewed 24 times in the past 4 months for internships, and only received one offer so far. I really appreciate your perspective and insight.
I remember one interview and it was the best I ever did. Answered every question and some - I didn't get the job. It's just the way it goes.
20% is in your control, 80% is not in your control.
be prepared, show up, but don't over think it.
Your advice/explanations are so eloquent; half the reason I watch these is to hear how you word things
Your videos are always so genuine, insightful, and straight to the point. Never wasting a second thank you.
Lesson 1: grind leetcode, because you're gonna get some bullshit tech interview question that has literally nothing to do with on-the-job engineering.
Because people with No technical background valides your technical background.
For your first developer role, you started with 4 interviews and got 3 offers? Really was a different time. :)
Yeah exactly, hard to land a single interview these days.
@@maheshprabhu Especially with THOUSANDS of layoffs from FANG companies. Whenever you apply to a job, you are competing against those same thousands of people who were laid off. I'm actually thinking of switching careers because Software Engineering is a total joke now.
total joke for weak devs
in 2011 I had one interview and got the job.I got fired a month later because I didnt know I could scrap code and do things my way to I waited too long in doing so, did it, then got fired. The manager said I could come back when I had more experience.
@@raul4033 aw cutie
00:00 From support engineer to principal software engineer at Amazon
01:10 Interviewing is a numbers game
02:16 Don't become emotionally invested in a single opportunity
03:27 Lower tier companies can be used for practice to reduce nervousness in subsequent interviews.
04:36 Interview questions may not be about what you think they are
05:41 Play the right game to avoid getting destroyed
06:50 Technical skills are necessary but not sufficient for landing a job
07:57 Soft skills are critical in interviews
Steve you’re like the kind, supportive, wise, emotionally mature Asian dad I never had
That's big coming from Nunchuck daddy.
plll
Laughing and crying
I admire your persistence! Don't give up, one day they gonna hire you
I started in “application development support” at IBM. It sucked and really made me question “Did I just go to school to do this?” Though it opened the door for my career, and not sure where I would be without it. Great things start from humble places.
Fixing bugs sucks big time. You are chasing a ghost that's hard to find
They wrapped my role as a "Jr. Software Engineer", but it was hiding the fact it was just bug fixing and only that. We had 3 teams of bug fixers and me coming from college with mostly personal project experience, I could not understand why they just couldn't do a rewrite
I’m in a cloud support role right now trying to transition into SWE. Can we connect? @thefosplus
It’s nice you’ve added a realist mentality to this topic. I didn’t think this way before, thanks for your views!
Great analogy about interviewing in parallel and not in series.
Also to put them in tiers and use the lower ones as practice.
Really appreciate the content man!
Your lessons reminded me that interviews are just like poker, where I should always be prepared for a wild card! 😅
The poker analogy is on point for job applications. Definitely helps keep things in perspective and not to get too high or low with anything that happens after a bad or good interview.
such an awesome video with really great advice Steve! i loved the comparison to poker and the reminder that interviewing is a numbers game. interview enough times and you're bound to succeed :)
Can confirm. Excellent information.
Great presentation as usual
great video! stumbled on this after posting my how I got started in Tech video on YT as well
Thanks for sharing!
Good advice bro!
Great advice.
To point 1, it makes sense that it’s a numbers game, but it’s all so emotionally draining to pretend to be interested knowing full goddamn well I’m going to be ghosted.
To the second point, I needed to hear this because I thought I was crazy for feeling and thinking the world didn’t make sense. I really hate that the world works this way because it feels like I’m too emotionally immature or blind to pick up on the real conversation that’s beneath or behind the conversation, it feels like I’m being tricked and it puts me in a defensive mood instead of being open.
Ill definitely keep this in mind in the future. For me, i do well on everything else except the technical. I barely get by because i get nervous, despite having practiced many times. I think ive developed a mental block, which has been hard to shed. Im still gainfully employed but im afraid of interviewing again.
Great Stuff ❤
Actually good advice. Well said.
Audio sounds great 👌
nice turntables. looking forward to meeting you
Great piece of advice for people who are in the middle of this process!
Thanks uncle Steve. This is quality content I would actually pay for. Definitely not one of those bogus rinse and repeat vid.
Uncle Steve is really chillin'. Full stocked minibar on the left and a poker player. :D
"change is pain" change is necessary and critical to success. If change is pain then you need to learn to be a better person.
I was helping my friend with interview prep, and I think that using ai to transcribe and suggest improvements to answers is the new meta for behavioral interview prep. You can have one prompt for reformatting your answer into strict STAR format, another for analyzing tone, and another for analyzing content.
I guess. But then do you need AI to be an engineer for you too?
@@whramijg My friend does fine with the technical part of his interviews. He struggles with behavioral questions because english is his second language, and he sometimes says things that are informal or unintentionally rude during interviews. The way we used it is analogous to a chess engine showing the best and worst moves in a human chess game.
This sounds interesting. Where can I find more on this? Do you have this written up somewhere?
Another incredible and practical compilation of advices. Thanks a lot, Steve!
Wow, I had no idea you started as a support engineer. Your growth has been incredible. Congratulations! I started a L5 TPM, then moved to L6 SDE Manager in my first review cycle. My first year I was in the "Top Tier" category, and then I just plateuad. After the great year one, I spent the rest of my time as a L6 Product Manager, L6 Ops Managrer. I did a stretch role doing L7 work for one peak, but I didn't do well enough for a perm promotion.
I left shortly after feeling lke a failure. Leaving Amazon is my greatest career regret, but I just couldn't get out of my head that people were promoting all around me. For referenece, the older version of me realizes I wasn't ready. However, at the time, it really hurt, and my lack of promotions was all I could think about day and night.
Can you talk about how long you spent at each level? Did you ever feel like you were failing because you weren't moving up as quickly as you wanted?
1. Give more interviews more the better.
2. Accept the system, you cannot change it. Prepare for the interview not for the job.
3. Focus on non-techinal parts too. This is the deal breaker.
I also ended up in a role where everybody else left and I was stuck with ALL the on-call. That service doesn't have any incidents anymore because I started driving quality-first development.
Great advice that you can't learn something from reading a book or watching a youtube video. That holds true for this video of you indeed.
Awesome content
This is excellent
One thing I have learned is that there are a lot of really picky, really arrogant and really offensive people out there in tech that love to catch you on the slightest technicalities so that they can put you down and make you feel like shit. It's seriously making me consider leaving the industry even though I love working in it because I'm just so tired of superiority complex a lot of these people have. People get into lead or senior positions and spend a couple years at a place and then get this gigantic ego and expect someone in a interview to be the next coming of Jesus Christ and if you're not that then youre treated like a dumbass that shouldn't be alive.
"You can have a good hand, and still lose the game"... like the life itself. Amazing analogy.
Reminder:
1. Not focus on 1 company, pick a lot of them.
2. Answer to the questions, don't go too deep into it.
3. Be prepared technically, but remember about 'soft' part of the interview.
i was a support engineer at amazon as well. i transferred to a SDE then eventually SED2
Hey can we connect? I’m at support Eng rn and hoping to move to SWE
Here's a breakdown of the main points discussed in the video:
1. Lesson 1: Interviewing is a numbers game:
- Interviewing is compared to a numbers game, similar to professional poker.
- It is emphasized that you shouldn't expect to win every time, even if you are well-prepared.
- The importance of lining up multiple interviews to increase your chances of receiving offers is highlighted.
- The idea of not becoming emotionally invested in a single opportunity and maintaining a selective approach is emphasized.
2. Lesson 2: Interviews are not testing day-to-day job skills:
- It is mentioned that many people fall into the trap of preparing based on their perception of how things should be, rather than how they actually are.
- The purpose of interviews is explained as ensuring that companies never hire a bad candidate, even if it means filtering out potentially good performers.
- The analogy of the gatehouse (interview process) not resembling the clubhouse (actual work environment) is used to illustrate this point.
3. Lesson 3: Focus on solving the interviewer's problem:
- The importance of understanding the underlying problem the interviewer wants to solve is discussed.
- It is suggested that candidates should focus on providing solutions to the interviewer's problems and demonstrating their ability to add value to the company.
- The idea of viewing the interview as a collaboration rather than a test is emphasized.
4. Bonus lesson: Avoid common interview pitfalls:
- A brief mention is made about avoiding common interview pitfalls, but specific details are not provided in the given text.
Solid video and definitely learnt something. Feedback: Mention that your have 3 lessons in the title and present the lessons my most important to least important. I understand the tactic of leaving your most important lesson towards the end to retain viewership, but there was also a strong chance I would've clicked away before you got to your most important lesson. Also, add chapters to your videos so I can skip around to the different parts of the video easily. Hopefully this helps!
Nice audio man
I wish I watched this earlier . Gold content!
thanks buddy
Thanks steve
Techincal portion is important for obvious reasons but when it comes to working with co-workers / customer, communication skills can make the difference between an Instagram clone that runs on local vs a product funded, running on cloud and used by actual users.
Heading to the casino now thanks 👍🏾👍🏾
Shoutout to the dj equipment in the background.
Poker analogy was soooo helpful :) Thanks!
This is great and all, but I've applied to 200 junior dev positions and haven't even gotten responses back let alone interviews. I've checked my resume against many professionals in the industry that say it looks great and that I'm hireable. Are there just no jobs out there right now? Am I getting unlucky? This process really has shot my self-esteem, which I work hard every day to maintain.
It’s the tech recession rn
Can you talk more about your shift from being a support engineer to a software developer. Great content as usual
Amazon is my dream I definitely hope to work there soon one day till that day will try to gain enough experience to be worthy of it ❤
Fun story from my first job at a finance company. I wasn't given instructions so parked in an available slot at the front of the building. During the interview the guy was visibly distracted and rushed through everything in super quick time I thought I'd messed up badly and left assuming no chance, so was surprised when they called that same day with an offer. After I started a colleague explained that I'd parked in a section reserved (but not sign posted) for senior management. My interviewer had received an angry call just before I walked in, apparently this caused quite a stir but ultimately it showed that the company had 'unwritten rules' and bad communication which was a red flag and that was born out working there but it was a good stepping stone in my career.
I’m gonna be honest. This video is good. But the advice is no better than anything I’ve heard from L3s and L4s. This advice is too general. Obviously both technical and behavioral matter. Obviously you should understand what part of the question the interviewer is focused on. Which portion of the video actually comes from a place of performing 800+ interviews beyond just making references to poker?
Probably, you should think about how useful the Amazon interview process is when they ended up hiring human trafficking ring leader in a high management position and many people who were promoted and I had discussion with, they advised me to lie.
Love the poker comparison! ♠♥♦♣
Amazon hires anybody, there is no profound game you need to nail the job interview. Just a little luck in that the hiring manager likes you and vouches for you in the debrief after your interview.
So getting into google would be harder?
Give us a precise preparation guide including topics and time please.
1:59 "Interviewing is a numbers game" So this requires engineering offices to be in a country. Also the interviews should be of the same type, whiteboard, so if you are prepared for one interview you are prepared for all. I assume all this true for USA. When you are bounded to certain country(due to different reasons: visa, family etc.) this becomes hard. Even if I think about second most developed region in the World: Europe. I can think only a few countries which have engineering offices at least of 20 top tier software companies(and also a decent pay, not like working for Microsoft in Turkey and get the salary of typical software engineer in Germany) : UK, Ireland, maybe Netherlands.
Please write in the comments in which countries except USA, the advises mentioned in this video could be applicable.
850+ interviews is crazy. Its almost one interview a week on average during his entire career. Amazon turn over must be insane
You're getting a lot of comments from people saying that they feel baited because you didn't give any insight beyond what a junior engineer could tell you. There aren't any shortcuts here, nor is there a magic trick to passing - you have to put in the work. Everything that Steve says is correct, and interviews are completely a numbers game. But in the same way that poker is a numbers game and has variance, each player also has an expected value/return. Prep adequately and you can raise that number of interviews that you pass, and go into all interviews knowing that even if you get a tough question, it's just variance and you'll bounce back in the next one.
Great video Steve, and as a shameless plug I have a bunch of systems design prep on my channel
Big plus-1 to anything Kurzgesagt. I've spent an unreal amount of hours just watching their CZcams videos.
20% is in your control, 80% is not in your control.
be prepared, show up, but don't over think it.
Hello Steve,
Seems like you know a thing or two about long term investing. Maybe expand your channel topics to that? You had great success holding through the 2008 crash and right now would be a great time to let ppl know what you would do now learning from that time.
Thanks for time and content.
Just got my fourth rejection and it was from a dream job even though I thought I nailed the interview. Luckily I already accepted an offer I received from a company that I used to practice with and at much better terms. You never know...
Nice video
I worked at Amazon, what I learned, don't trust them.
As a fresh CS grad who's trying to get back on track, video content like this is much appreciated!
I don’t interview at FAANG companies, so I my experience with ‘solve this leet code-type question’ has really been preform ‘fizz-buzz’. What I do encounter is ‘give me the definition of C# keyword/concept’. I’ve decided that either
A). The person interviewing me doesn’t have time for memorizing leet code cause it brings them no value
B). My answers to their definition questions, tell them not to move forward.
I just don’t encounter many interviews, from non FAANG companies that include leetcode questions
I did encounter that, actually. But it was after recent aws rounds, so I was prepared. Normally I wouldn't practice leetcode for average interviews.
I started my interview process at my current company in Jan and didn’t get hired until August
High archiever this guy is. Even not get an interview i can
I don't want to do 850 anything
wisdom. you are wize...continue your journey, follow your wisdom, eliminate crap friends, or poor ones....study elementary magic
I like references to poker game in this video 🙂
Can you please make more videos on how to crack the behavioural interviews.
Fantastic career advice for technical builders 👏
I practiced with a lower tier company and ended up surprised by the people and the offer. I took the offer and never looked back!
hhhh, I love you are using poker as analogies in your examples
Hey Life Engineered, how did you get to PE in 15 years? I know some people with 10 YOE who are still L5, despite trying for L6. How do you know if there’s scope in your team/org for those higher levels?
When are you writing a book ?
love your content
The problem now is even getting an interview
What are you looking for at bare raiser interviews?
and a DJ as I've noticed these turntable in background
Oh boohoo you got a 75% callback rate lol i feel your pain. Try applying to 300-400 and having a 1% callback rate.
skill issue
@@midivue what is this, Apex Legends? Lol finally found a good job btw. Took like 3-4 months 😎🫰
"the technical portion is the ante" wow
It's even harder for someone who got rejected before getting call for an interview
Screw this tech stuff, I’m eyeing that gear you got. What music you producing?
Hey Uncle Steve! Thanks for sharing your experience. I am not sure if you have already answered or not but can you please tell us how long at least one should work at one company before switching oder doing interviews for a new company. For example, I quit my last job after working 9 months because of homeoffice options provided. With my new job I got full homeoffice option but I have difficult time with some(2 to be clear) of my new teammates. I talked to them if we can resolve the tension between us in any way but could not. I’m still working there but I’m not enjoying it. If I now start again with interviews, I don’t know to explain it and they might think that I’m job hopper that switches a lot. I don’t know how to proceed. Can you please address this or similar situation and help us deal this with grace. Thank you, uncle Steve!
Hey there! Have been in similar situations and honestly you are overthinking it! Getting a job that is decent can be tough and not all things will work out sometimes. In your case, if the people you have worked with refuse to get along that is going to make your workinglife tough especially if you can't avoid them. 1. Go ahead and interview at new places BUT you don't need to tell them about the conflict...just make something up: e.g the job was not what i thought it was and i was not doing what i thought i would...get creative. The most important point is: if they are bringing you in to interview they can see your past time.spent in jobs and must still be interested- most modern companies aren't bothered these days as long as you can justify why you are moving! Wish you good luck- let us know how it turns out!
Ps when interviewing ask about company culture etc to make sure you don't get stuck with similar people again
Jobhoppers unite
I see your point, but interviews are also about finding a company that fits YOU. If it doesn't, you'll end up frustrated and angry. It is not a moral failing if it's not a match, but lying to yourself for a paycheck is.
4:35 I am seriously surprised at this story. I don't know how you could go wrong here. Can you explain this further? Maybe in a separate video or a reply to this comment or even the newsletter? Thanks!
It sounds like he talked about the wrong part of system design. Perhaps he talked about database design or reliability, when he should have talked about scaling.
You should change this video title to "The story of a programming god"
3 offers out of 4 interviews? Omg! I had 20+ interviews in the last 6 months and not a single offer.
Here is a question, how long should you wait before reapplying in a company?
@Ankush Thakur thanks buddy