Last year, I took the plunge and applied for a Frontend Engineering Position at Amazon. I knew little about the interview process and I had just on...
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This article is really inspirational for me. I recently gave an interview with big financial firm. Where I had 4 hr interview with group of 7 people. But I couldn't make it through as I didn't prepared for behavior questions. And I felt that while going through my last behavior interview. I am quite confident with my technical skills but once it comes to case / behavior questions I realized myself how unprepared I was. Your blog really inspired me. Definitely I am planning to take notes from your article and prepare accordingly.
Good luck on your next attempt! Interviewing is a win win situation, regardless if you get an offer. You either get the job, or you learn more about the interview process. I am sure next time you will do much better.
Let me know how your next interview goes. :)
That's a nice point of view. :)
I went through a similar interview process and completely bombed it by trying to wing through most of it. The SAR sections can get you off guard if you can't think of the right answers on the spot. Lately, I've noticed how some employers prefer to give take-home exams or projects that test the role's skillset. They are simple enough that the applicant doesn't feel as if they are offering free labor. I tend to like that more than the grueling back-to-back interviews, but I also understand how more prominent companies have to make sure they get someone with the right cultural fit. Amazon’s AWS division is exploding, and I can see how their front-end code could get real complicated quickly. I agree with all of the suggestions above. Congratulations on landing the role!
Thanks!
Yes, the behavioral interview questions are very vague. I found myself caught off guard as well, but the interview prep grid really helped me discover talking points.
I actually declined the offer from Amazon and went with Streem streem.com/. I may write an article on happiness which relates to this decision. It took me several days to make this decision as I weighed the pros and cons of both offers and how each job would impact my family's future.
Nice job prepping so well. These strategies are definitely going to help a lot of people better prep for tough interviews.
Can you go into more detail on how you prepped for the whiteboard/coding questions?
The prep work I did for whiteboard questions involved a pen, paper and solving algorithm questions in my language of choice. I would set a 40 minute timer, and talk out loud while attempting to solve it. I did not use Google to search for an answer while solving the question. I would commit to solving the question by myself for 40 minutes.
At the end, I would rewrite the code in my editor to see what mistakes I made, and then compare my solution to an answer online. I practiced with 1 whiteboard question per day, which made me very confident presenting my thoughts.
Great article and good points.
About the whitboard questions:
Is there a specific place you gathered them (like leetcode)?
Yes, I used leetcode and youtube to find my whiteboard questions. These were great resources because they also had answers to algorithms.
Thanks so much. This is such a nice post.
Anytime Rayhan! The interview process is challenging, but these interview techniques have worked so well for me! I hope it helps you when you're applying for your next job.