Career Advice About Amazon

I've done various presentations throughout my career, and I always get stressed out doing them. I'll make slides/a script beforehand and pull all-nighters the day before. I'm okay presenting in front of smaller groups, but it's hard in front of larger groups.

How can I get more comfortable with this, especially with higher stakes presentations like those trying to get buy-in from a large group of senior+ engineers and tech leads?

During design meetings, when there are questions that causes circling around a topic that is marked as out of topic. Even though I tell people that it is out of topic as we don't have time to build it and no plan to build it in future and people are still ask questions about same topic. When I personally feel its a nice to have feature but the scope has already been defined, what to tell and move forward to continue with the rest of the design?

I would like to interview for a staff software engineer position at google. Can someone who has been through the process shed some light on the preparation plan How much coding versus system design versus behavioral questions to expect? What is the best way to prepare for the interview.

Hi Team,

My team has a really great manager who I've been working under for past 3~ years who has aided me in fast tracking my career growth, however there will be change in structure, and our team will be led by a new Manager. As a result, I'll be required to build up the relationship with the new manager, earn trust, etc.

However, at the same time I'm worried that all the progress I've put forwards to build a good case for my promotion might get lost as I've been doing a lot of work that doesn't directly reflect in overall Team's Yearly planning such as drastic improvements in OE (Saving multiple SDE weeks yearly), many architectural upgrades to existing systems (as a clean up activity while working on my main project) etc.

I feel these data points might get lost: How can I ensure that the transition between managers will not end up affecting my long term growth plan? I still have 3-4 weeks till the transition is complete.

Heard a lot about Bar Raiser round during Amazon interviews but I also see some people posting it as an award. Would like to know more about this and the kind of mindset needed for it.

I was going through Alex's DSA course however I don't quite understand a few of the concepts he mentions. For example, Alex mentions that the difference between a yes and a strong yes is that a candidate asks more clarifying questions and edge cases. Aren't these pretty much the same thing? Shouldn't we clarify all of the edge cases in the beginning? Also, shouldn't we discuss alternative solutions before we start coding? Also, time/space complexity as well?

I don't think this is the case however because Alex says not to do the happy flow + edge cases all at once but first to code the happy flow -> account for edge cases (after).

I think what Alex is trying to mention from this course is when given a DSA problem we should do basic edge case clarification and verbalization of our solution to very quickly get a solution out and then try to come up with more edge cases/solutions to see if we missed anything (as this is how software is built in real life. I wanted to confirm this point. Sorry if this is a ramble.

How to use data to come up with estimates for tasks at the initial stages? What's a reasonable time to come up with the estimates themselves (if there's research involved)?

I know about the Pomodoro Technique but I feel that 25 minutes is too short of a time block to get and stay in the zone.

How would you organize your day into time blocks for deep work while maintaining focus and not burning out?

• Four-hour blocks with a break in between?
• One eight-hour block (if there are no meetings)?
• One six-hour block?

Hi everyone,

I hope this message finds you well. I'm currently an SDE-II at Amazon and have developed a keen interest in advancing my career towards AI, specifically in Vision and Autonomous Systems.

I am reaching out to seek advice on how to approach this transition within Amazon. I value my current role and team, but I'm eager to align my career with my growing interest in AI technologies.

Could anyone share their experiences or advice on how to discuss this career aspiration with my manager and skip level? Additionally, I would be grateful for any guidance on mentorship programs, internal channels, or resources that were instrumental in your career transitions within Amazon, particularly into AI-focused roles.

Any insights or recommendations on how to navigate this path would be immensely appreciated. Thank you for your time and help!

For my Behavioral rounds Preparation.

1. I curated all the questions surrounding leadership principles
2. I also created STAR answers for each question

I try to demonstrate that I have led Projected and Solved challenging problems on my own. But even with that interviewers seem to downlevel me from L5 > L4 (Amzon Levels). what qualities I should exhibit to get L5 level and how should I prepare for it?

I've had teammates do this in the past, and it's frustrating. How can I prevent it from happening again, and should I approach my manager about it? How do I frame that conversation if so?

I'm thinking of joining Amazon as an L6 Applied Scientist. The reporting chain they've proposed to me looks something like:

VP -> Snr Dir -> Dir -> Snr Mgr -> Mgr -> Me

Now I've been made to understand that as L6, my official scope is Snr Dir, i.e. impact across teams that sit under Snr Dir. I'm concerned how far down the chain I am here, especially if I eventually want to grow to L7, which would require impact at the higher level (VP). I doubt reporting to the Snr Dir is on the table, but I'm wondering if I can try to convince them to let me report to the Dir. They're telling me that who your manager is doesn't affect your scope, but I'm skeptical. On the flip side, it is Mgr who seems very excited to hire me, and I'm wondering if mentioning this to either him or Snr Mgr (who I have a sell call with next week) will cause problems.

Any advice on how to navigate this situation would be most helpful.

I have ~3 years of work experience, but it was spent working a non-SWE role within Amazon. Because of this, companies consider me between SWE 1 and SWE 2 when I'm interviewing.

What’s the difference between SWE 1 and SWE 2 on the job, and how can I show that I'm in the latter camp in interviews so I can get a SWE 2 offer instead of being set back with a SWE 1 offer?

This is my first job at a FAANG company, so I'm interested in what are the main mindset shifts needed to succeed when switching into massive environment like this for the first time.

I joined less than a year ago out of college, and so far I've been able to learn things decently well, accordingly to what others on my team have told me.

So, there's an internal feedback mechanism in my team, and everyone has asked me for feedback. From where I'm at right now, everyone else in the team (they're all more senior than me by at least 4 years at Amazon) seems really knowledgeable, talented and does their work well.

How do I think about feedback I can give them as a (relative) noob?

Hi team,

I currently work as a Software Engineer (5 months in the role) at a mid-sized firm. I recently received an offer for the new grad SDE role at AWS with a start date in first week of December.

I also just heard back from Meta that they would like to proceed with virtual loop for their new grad SDE role. Given I clear the virtual loop, I am guessing the team matching phase takes a few weeks.

Would you recommend I join AWS meanwhile or push the start date at AWS and complete my virtual loop with Meta?

I am excited about the work at AWS based off of what I learnt from my hiring manager!

This is a follow up to

I decided to keep both roles open for as long as possible, so both are open right now. Meta postponed once and will now start in 3 weeks. Amazon postponed multiple times but it seems that they will finally send the laptop this week. I am expected to start at Amazon on Monday. There is a 2 weeks gap between Amazon's start date and Meta's start date.

I don't want to burn the bridge too much with Amazon but I have a large resume gap and I can't afford to lose both roles. So far, I don't see any reason that Meta would rescind the offer, but in this environment anything can happen.

When should I tell Amazon that I am taking a different role? I am leaning towards doing it this week, but I am scared to do it before Meta is 100% secure. Honestly, I can't afford anymore resume gap.

I just had an amazon behavioral interview. I'm a new grad SWE and interviewing for a non technical customer success role.

The interview was 3 behavioral questions. I tried to use STAR as much as possible but the interview was really like 15 ish minutes for the 3 behavioral questions. The interviewer did not follow up for 2/3 questions. At the end I asked 3 questions. total time was 20 minutes. Is it a red flag that my interview was only 20 minutes?

I think I was able to answer the behavioral questions and I mentioned the impact of my work/results at the end though I will admit I didn't go into super depth on the results part and focused more on the actions I think. This was my first real behavioral interview as well.

Hi Taro. I have two offers for contract roles through agencies.

First I got a 6 month role at Amazon. I previously worked at Amazon for a couple of years before I got laid off. I signed the offer.

Then I got a 12 month contract role at Meta. I decided that I would renege on Amazon and take Meta because it is longer. So I signed for Meta.

Meta starts in a month and Amazon starts in a week. There is a chance that after reneging Amazon, I could lose Meta. Meta can rescind the offer for example. How should I handle this situation while minimizing damage to my reputation at Amazon because I may return there one day for a full time role?

I am planning to ask Meta if I can start earlier, but I doubt it will be possible.

Thanks

I am in need of guidance in understanding an offer from a series A funded startup and also what to look out for in terms of red flags. Some of things I noticed during interview and in linkedin is that the 2 out of the 3 founders are recent bachelors grads and engineering consists of only 2 engineers and 1 scientist/researcher (including the founder) . There are total of 20-26 employees. They did show a demoable platform with claims to multiple customers in the airline, fulfillment centers and manufacturing centers. They are in series A with 10 M funded from corporate venture capital. My worry is that the founders don’t have the experience and the number of engineers are very less.

I was working on a P1 - High priority bug today which needed to be done within a day. This bug was assigned to me by a Senior Engineer who was supposed to pick up this task but was delegated to me. This engineer has been pretty helpful to me when I was ramping up on things. He explained me the context of the bug in a short call. I figured out the fix and sent him the method which was responsible for the issue and the stack-trace from the log and how I am going to fix it.

I was then told by the same engineer to not 'swing by small small things by me and that I take the entire ownership of the task I am doing and bring it to closure'. I do agree with this and understand that they have other priority meetings and features to work upon but my entire purpose of sending him updates was then I was not going off track and that the CR which I am going to raise does not have a lot of revision / reviews.

I just need to know when exactly are we supposed to let the other team member know how much we have progressed and also at the same time not let them feel that I am not taking ownership of my tasks?

I have communication issues. Especially in a new team, it takes lot of time to grasp what others are saying. During design discussions and post scrums -

1. When there are varying opinions and I still don't understand how to proceed next, what to say?
2. When there is an alignment and I am not confident if I have understand correctly, what to say?

I'm currently working at Amazon as a contractor. There's 2 questions on my mind:

1. I approached my manager for the possibility of converting to full-time and they said that headcount wasn't available. However, several full-time engineers joined the team recently in a similar role to mine. Should I approach my manager about this? If so, how do I frame the conversation?
2. Is it a good time switching to full-time in general? What are the pros/cons of contract vs. FTE?

I am a tenured software engineer and have upcoming software interviews lined up. I am looking for someone with whom I can pair up with for mock DSA and system design rounds.