A Amazon recruiter found me on Linkedin. I wasn't much interested in Amazon, after all it's mostly just an online retailer and I've done so much in support of advancing knowledge in space science as well as improving healthcare systems, and even DARPA projects, which is far more interesting than anything that a retailer could provide. I went through all of the interviews, from the initial 'raise the bar' person, though to their nearly day-long series of 5 separate interviews, each an hour long with several breaks in between. The questions are very much focused on their leadership values and the customer. Interviewers posed ambiguous questions to get an understanding of your approach and technical ability while delivering the response framed with the customer being centric to the solution, while expressing your leadership ability within the context of their leadership values. My goal was to gain a bit of an understanding of Amazon internals and the culture, and not to get a job . They focus extensively on automating the customer experience, so much so that I think they've forgotten that people want to interact with people, especially when a problem needs to be addressed. Yet they seem to want to push that aspect of sales to a minimum - because after all, people cost money. I wasn't impressed with anyone that I interviewed with, and I'm guessing that they weren't with me - even though I did make it into the final round of interviews. I think the interviewers (all men, the only woman was the recruiter - so much for their DEI claim), do fairly well within Amazon. Yet I wonder how well they would do elsewhere - I suspect they would be slightly above average, yet likely unable to perform well in very high-pressure positions, especially when you have to get it right the first time and it needed to be completed yesterday. Amazon mostly operates as businesses with the business. There is a bit of autonomy coupled with a strong desire to support the organization as a whole. I think I've achieved a better understanding of Amazon, which is to sell as much product as efficiently a possible, at the lowest price possible, with the least amount of human interaction. Based on the knowledge gained through the interview experience, I'll likely continue to make some purchases through Amazon, but I will also put considerably more effort into visiting my local brick-and-mortar retailers and make the purchases that were typically a given for Amazon. I'm going to regain the value and trust that I once had in my local businesses, where they provide a real person creating a customer experience that's catered to me.
