I went through a recruiting agency who had informed me that Amazon was interested in an initial phone interview. The phone interview (30 minutes) was with the team lead who was really nice and gave me a good impression of the company, or at least the team I might be working with. They seemed to be genuinely interested in walking through my work (they let me choose which projects I was most proud of and then focused on those), asking me about process, and about how I would deal with a difficult client. I was also asked to talk about a success and a failure. Since I straddled visual and user experience, was asked which I was more serious about.
I had been interviewing since the previous week with other companies, so nothing I was asked to discuss was abnormal or surprising. I was very calm, straightforward, honest, and pleasantly myself. I sensed that this attitude made an impression with the interviewer as there were some casual, friendly laughs as well as comments that gave the impression that we were peers. Notably, a comment they made about my portfolio, something quirky that I'd included (let's call it my 'motto') told me that they value people who work very hard, have a true passion for their work, have confidence, and are willing to go above and beyond. Of course, with a top company like Amazon, that's a no-brainer.
So, I interviewed early on the week and by Friday morning had an offer from the recruiter. What the interviewer had said in passing that they valued (the aforementioned 'motto') makes me think that a large part of a successful, mutually beneficial Amazon match is hugely related to culture, if you already have the chops. Again, not surprising but definitely worth reinforcing.
