What I Learned From Nearly 1,000 Interviews at Amazon
I was an Amazon Bar Raiser for over a decade. Here's what I was looking for.
A Bar Raiser is a specially trained interviewer whose job is to ensure that every hire raises the average talent level at Amazon. I had veto power over any candidate. I sat on nearly a thousand interview loops across every level from intern to Principal Engineer.
After 50 or so interviews, the patterns became impossible to miss. And this was the biggest one:
The candidates who didn’t get offers seldom failed because they lacked technical skill. They failed because of how they presented themselves.
For sure, technical preparation is crucial, and I’m not telling you to skip it. But most candidates have massive blind spots when it comes to non-technical matters, which is a big problem. Why? Because that blind spot is where most hiring decisions are made.
The Bar Raiser who trained me put it this way:
Technical skills are the ante. They get you into the game. But they’re not what wins you the hand.
I didn’t fully appreciate what that meant until I’d seen candidate…
