Career Advice About Amazon

As a senior IC, I am included as part of leadership meetings (Director+). I gain a lot of early insights into business direction, which is great. However I would like to see how i can take part in the discussions and have effective conversations? I am looking for a book suggestion and/or framework to use on how to go about improving on this? Few dimensions which could impact this - Personality of the individual Awareness/one’s expertise of the topic being discussed

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.

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?

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.

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.

I am contemplating if it is a good idea to switch my job for promotion or stay at my current team, company. My primary motivation for switch is the job location (I plan on getting married by next year and just settling in a location for long term), career growth. Here are my reasons, pros, cons: Staying at current job: I have worked for a year and I am now familiar with Amazon ways of doing things. I feel a bit more confident and that I am making progress as a software professional. Pros:

• I can gain depth in my project (domain knowledge), technologies as for switching to a mid-level role would require both these.
• Great team, and work environment Cons
• The promotions in my team to a SDE-2 takes 2-2.25 yrs with the team. It's been 1 yr in Dec, I have work exp 4 years in India, and I do not wish to stay at this level that long. However, I think it will be tough to get a promotion before this timeline.
• Looking at the new year roadmap and senior team members leaving the team for another team I feel, we are becoming a mature product and there might not be too many opportunities in my current team. I believe the exposure would have been better if I was in this team a few years ago.
• 5 days RTO, I am seriously thinking about moving out of Seattle and settling somewhere in bay area. I don't think I can deal with this weather for a very long time.
• Switching teams might not be a good idea as it will reset my promotion timeline. Switching job: Not sure how good the market is right now for switch and if I am being too impatient in moving to the next role. I did have some gap in career due to my masters and I might be a bit rusty but I believe if I know my direction, I can just prepare for interviews and take it from there.
  
  TIA

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!

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)?

For my Behavioral rounds Preparation. I curated all the questions surrounding leadership principles 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 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.

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 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?