I Did 850 Tech Interviews For Amazon And I Learned This

"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!

It's weird how there is so much turnover in big tech, but they are so confident in their interview process.

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.

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..

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.

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.

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.

For your first developer role, you started with 4 interviews and got 3 offers? Really was a different time. :)

I admire your persistence! Don't give up, one day they gonna hire you

Your lessons reminded me that interviews are just like poker, where I should always be prepared for a wild card! 😅

Really appreciate the content man!

It’s nice you’ve added a realist mentality to this topic. I didn’t think this way before, thanks for your views!

This video is full of superb advices! I'm on a job search and got an OA for Amazon this week. Everything you're saying is such a valuable insight to me. I'm understanding what I need to do better, first-hand. Thank you so much!

Great analogy about interviewing in parallel and not in series. Also to put them in tiers and use the lower ones as practice.

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 :)

great video! stumbled on this after posting my how I got started in Tech video on YT as well

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

Can confirm. Excellent information.

Great presentation as usual