Before being able to have an actual interview, you must first pass an automated coding exam.

While this is becoming more standard practice for software engineer positions, Amazon's test was particularly poorly designed.

Most of the allotted time was spent trying to understand how to test and submit answers within their system rather than actually solving problems.

The programming questions asked were not well-defined. Subsequent questions would build on earlier ones in a way that resulted in a lot of memorization and repetition, rather than actually testing knowledge or problem-solving skills.