I contacted AWS after reading an ad I'd seen on LinkedIn. The HR person called to set up the first phone screen interview and provided various documents including a consent for criminal records check and a statement of the Amazon values. These, I learned, are the cult truths that must be internalized by all new devotees. First telephone screen was technical and would be conducted by a senior engineer and took an hour. I should confess I knew little about AWS so I was a little wrong-footed because they opened with questions about their business offering. Then it got onto tech questions "How would you do X?", "Explain what happens (in as much detail as possible) when a user does Y?" and so on. Since this was a security screen there were basic crypto and similar questions. I found that enjoyable and my interviewer told me I'd definitely be going forward. It took two weeks before I heard from HR and it was another phone screen - this time with a manager. The second phone screen also asked some technical questions but the focus was different and considered me as a person and y work history. This was also scheduled to take an hour. I got a chance to explain my experience and to listen to some of the corporate speil. It is clear that internalizing the Amazon values is core to acceptance. Again a positive verbal feedback and another two week wait. Next up was the face-to-face meetings and they lined up five one-hour interviews with various senior people. For this they flew me interstate. Each interview had a different focus and they were largely enjoyable and interesting. I got to ask questions but a combination of time constraints and not wanting to appear picky meant I didn't get to ask enough questions to satisfy myself as to what I'd actually do. I got a clear impression that they equate hours with effort and that work/life balance is tilted in favor of work. They also did not meet my interview expenses (I'd incurred about 100$ for taxis etc.) and I thought that a bit cheap. I also was left in no doubt that on-calls will feature heavily and travel to Seattle will happen reasonably often. Another two weeks before the offer materialized.