I applied through college or university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Oct 2009
Interview
The interview was arranged through my university and occurred on campus.
I met with one an engineer. He was pleasant, but not extremely friendly.
The interview started by asking me a bit about my classes and previous work experience. We then talked about what exactly I was interested in doing at Amazon, things I liked about Amazon products, etc. I was asked what features I would want to approve on their website.
There were three technical questions. The first question asked how you was something like, how would you find the most common word in a string. It wasn't really that difficult, and after talking it through with the interviewer, I wrote code for it. He seemed happy with my answer.
Second, he asked me a question related to the first one but with about databases. I don't really have any database experience so I really struggled with this.
Last, he asked what happens when a person goes on the Amazon website, as in what happens between the person typing "www.amazon.com" and the page loading up. I answered pretty well, but needed a little help. He was nice and gave me a few hints which led me to the right answer.
Overall I felt positive about the interview except for the database question. The next day I received an email, however, saying that I hadn't been chosen for the next round. Oh well.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Describe what happens between the time a person types in "www.amazon.com" and they see the web page on their computer.
The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Amazon in Feb 2010
Interview
First I get two phone interviews. In the phone interviews, they asked me a lot questions about c/c++. Because I have a lot of experience about Unix network programming. They ask me something about tcp/udp and thread programming. For the onsite interview, they ask me something about design pattern, and how to design a phonebook. They also asked something about shell programming. It is not very hard.
but you need to ask hints and make sure whether your idea is correct. : )
I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Amazon in Dec 2009
Interview
Did not prepare - went in cold - was in fora surprise. They are not like your typical SE interviews - post-interview, read more about google interviews and how they are interested in CS topics - trees, data structures, algorithms, etc. I do have a personal interest in such topics though wasn't prepared for the interview. Did ok, but not good enough. The interview took an hour and I had to send a code-sample within an hour post interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write a serialization algorithm in Java for a binary tree structure with multiple children that may have children of their own. Explain the basic process and post-interview finish code-sample within the hour and send it.