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Sorry to hear that OP had such a bad experience. I guess as so often, it really depends on which team / division you are interacting with. I was interviewing for Amazon a while back and my experience was mostly positive. I had applied myself and they got in touch via email a few weeks later. After a brief email exchange, I got invited for a phone interview. All very straight forward - the interviewer was really friendly and professional. At the end of the interview, he also gave me some pointers about what he thinks is important in interviews. A week later or so, I got an invitation for on-site interviews. I think it was 5 interviews in total. The hiring manager and his team were all really nice. (Interesting site note: I did mention some interesting and for the interview relevant HN article at some point and the interviewer told me that I should not believe everything that is said on HN haha.)
I think the "bad cop" role was given to the two off-site interviewers. They asked some tough questions, one of which was something along the line of "Tell me about a time when you were right about something but could not convince others/management." Of course, I had experienced such situations in the past, but I struggled to give a clear narrative. I didn't want to look like someone who doesn't care; nor like someone who doesn't get their point across, nor like a push-over. In the end, I left it at something like "I still think I was right, but for other, non-content-related reasons, management went for a different decision." They didn't seem happy about my answer.
The last interview was a bit weird and I probably asked a stupid question that put the interviewer off. I think that was my inner obstructionist. I was living in Belgium at the time and I really love BE (but didn't like my job there). The Amazon job looked better, but I didn't really feel like moving to the UK, where the job was located. Also, the team indicated that they are doing more than 9-5. Here, too, my inner obstructionist was telling me 'meh'. You can see where this is going: I didn't get the offer. Still, I thought the process was pretty decent and fair in my case. Of course, this is also just a personal experience, but I thought I'd share a nicer one. |