My AWS Interview Experience

How I cleared technical phone screen, assignment and AWS loop interview

Oct 10, 2024

Hey, Prasad here 👋 I'm the voice behind the weekly newsletter "Behavioural OS for Techies."

Welcome to this week's article, in which I talk about my Amazon interview experience!

If you like the article, click the ❤️ icon. That helps me know you enjoy reading my content.

I love writing this newsletter, but producing a weekly edition is challenging from a bandwidth perspective.

As many of you readers know, we started the BeSA batch 06 last week, so I was not able to spend a lot of time writing the newsletter article for this week.

I wanted a quick win, so I dug into my LinkedIn content and found posts on how I cleared AWS interview in 2019. I thought it will be useful to consolidate few of them.

So, in this article, I’m sharing

How I cleared the technical phone screen at AWS
How I completed the assignment for the AWS loop interview
How I prepared for my AWS loop interview

Coincidentally, this week, I also completed my 5 years at AWS. And that makes this topic of my AWS interview experience even more special!

Lets get started.

📱How I cleared the technical phone screen at AWS

Technical phone screen at AWS is more than a technical round, it includes behavioral questions too.

My phone screen happened in 3 parts:

1️⃣ 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 (~𝟯𝟱 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘀)

I had been interviewing at other companies. So, I was in the zone already and had good preparation for the technical topics in my domain.

Most questions were based on the technical skills that were mentioned on my resume and the job description.

What helped me was doubling down on areas I have worked on and staying away from questions on which I did not have experience.

For example, when I was asked about scenarios for using/not using Microservices, I not only explained the scenarios but also provided an example from my previous project experience, including the rationale.

This allowed the interviewer to understand my hands-on experience, leading to relevant followup questions in my area of strength.

On the contrary, when asked about two-way trust in Active Directory, I explained the concept but admitted having no direct experience setting it up.

This subtle hint helped me earn the trust of interviewer and they steered away from followup questions on that topic.

2️⃣ 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (~𝟭𝟱 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘀)

A quick Google search helped me understand how important Amazon Leadership Principles are for the interview, even in the technical round. So, I did prepare couple of stories in STAR format.

One of the questions asked to me was - "Tell me about a complex scenario that you have solved with a simple solution. Why was it complex? How did you solve it? What was the outcome?" A pretty standard question that you are asked in an interview.

Here, I decided to talk about a scenario where I have helped multiple stakeholders come on same page for a particular solution.

I deliberately did not choose a complex technical issue and how I solved it.

This helped me convey to the interviewer that I can work with stakeholders organization-wide and influence the decision-making that impacts the wider team (just not the project that I have been assigned to work on).

3️⃣ 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 (𝟭𝟬 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘀)

This is one of the most underrated part of the interview where you can leave a mark on the interviewer.

I had prepared a list of thoughtful questions about the role and the interviewer (I checked their LinkedIn profile thoroughly). So, it went pretty smoothly.

📋 How I completed the assignment for the AWS loop interview

AWS assignment for loop interview is not an elimination round. But you need to complete it before appearing for the AWS loop.

For the Solutions Architect role, I was given a CloudFormation script that provisions an infrastructure for a simple web app. The web app was not loading, and I had to fix it.

But the AWS assignment is not only about solving the technical issue. It is also about writing a document that details troubleshooting steps to solve the issue and short-term and long-term recommendations to improve the architecture of the app.

It was particularly difficult for me because I had zero experience with cloud. I did not even know what CloudFormation meant.

My loop was scheduled in 3 weeks. I had to learn AWS, fix the issue, write a document, and then prepare for the loop interview.

I knew with my full-time job and personal commitments, I would not be able to do it. So, I requested my recruiter for another 3 weeks. So, in total, I had 6 weeks.

It was time to showcase "Learn and Be Curious."

I took AWS Solutions Architect Associate course from acloudguru, and it took me 7 days to finish the full course.

I took some more time to learn AWS, not just to fix the technical issue with the broken app but also to learn best practices so that I could write short-term and long-term recommendations for the architecture in the document.

It took me another week to write the document. I was never good at writing or documentation. So, it took me longer than expected.

I had to refer multiple AWS whitepapers and blogs to ensure I was recommending the right architecture.

Though, I did not have real-life project experience on AWS, but the general architecting knowledge I had came in handy.

Few tips:

1️⃣ 𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿-𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁

When writing troubleshooting steps, ensure that you are explaining each step clearly in a way that another person will be able to do it themselves in their enviornment without asking you further questions.

2️⃣ 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗳𝗶𝘁𝘀

When recommending short-term and long-term recommendations, ensure that with every technical recommendation you provide, you also explain the business benefits and why the customer should invest in implementing your recommendations.

3️⃣ 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗪𝗦 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲

Leverage AWS white papers and blogs, not only for the technical content but also to understand the AWS writing style, as it is unique.

⚡How I prepared for my AWS loop interview

The AWS loop consists of 5 interviews. The focus is mostly on behavioral interviews.

I followed 5 steps to prepare for behavioral questions:

1️⃣ 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗺𝗮𝘇𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 (𝗟𝗣𝘀)

Two resources that helped me the most were following:

The Amazon Leadership Principles - A Complete Interview Guide by Dave Anderson
Interview Genie Amazon Interview resources by Jennifer Scupi.

I'm more of a paper and pen person, so I took printouts of the articles and read them multiple times. I was trying to understand what each of the Amazon LPs means, what kind of behavioral questions are asked, and how to structure the answers in the STAR format.

2️⃣ 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀

Once I understood the LPs well, I reflected on my experiences and jotted down major career events (both successes and failures) that I could use as stories in the interview.

For each story, I tried to recollect as much information as I could. I just kept writing them down in no particular order.

3️⃣ 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁

I visited the articles again to find examples that resembled my stories, so I could take inspiration on how to structure the data I had for my stories in STAR format.

It's hard work to write down the Situation, Task, Action, and Result for each story.

4️⃣ 𝗠𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗟𝗣𝘀

I collected bunch of behavioral questions, categorized them as per Amazon LPs, and then mapped my stories to them.

It's never a 1:1 mapping between a story and an LP. One story will exhibit multiple LPs, and for one LPs, you can fit in many stories.

5️⃣ 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀

I practiced speaking each story multiple times. I used to do it out loud in front of a mirror and with my wife. I asked my wife to ask follow-up questions to practice it in a mock interview style.

I used to record and listen to them back. Every time, I would find ways to improve the story. It's an iterative process to get your stories right.

⚠️ 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿?

1️⃣ The mistake I made was that I prepared only 7 stories. In hindsight, I should have prepared 10-15 stories. I had to repeat a few stories, which made me anxious.

2️⃣ I could have thought more about the follow-up questions. I underestimated the "peeling the onion." They do dive deep a lot.

3️⃣ For every scenario, I could have prepared "What I would have done differently if I did it all over again."