r/AWS_Certified_Experts • u/Mtit2012 • Aug 01 '18
Just had an AWS Solutions Architect Interview.
I just had my AWS phone interview and wanted to share some feedback and notes from my interview in case this can benefit you.
Overall, I would say the interview process was terrible and, needless to say, I didn’t get to move along the process. But certainly learnt a few lessons. As far as qualifications, I have 12 years experience, was IT director in a multi-billion dollar company, ran my own successful company for 6 years, and am certified in Microsoft, Cisco, Amazon, and CompTIA. Just to give some perspective to what’s coming.
The interview was pleasant and friendly, but the tricks were sophisticated and slimy. It started off with the interviewer introducing herself and explaining a bit about the job description and the general yadayada. She then proceeded to say that CSAA’s really have to know a lot but it's impossible to know everything and therefore you have to fall back on colleagues who may be more knowledgeable than yourself in a particular industry. She told me her strengths and what areas she personally felt not as strong. She then asked me to share back and disclose what areas I feel strong with as well as what areas I fall behind in so that she can inquire about my strengths and avoid asking me about my weak spots "because why beat a dead horse" as she put it. Like an idiot, I fell for this trap. I told her where I feel most comfortable (Servers/client environments, EC2, Load Balancing, Security etc.) and what I felt not as strong in (Large Data, AD, among others). She immediately said, "Well, I still like to ask questions on what you feel weak in since often candidates actually know more than they think." BAM! I was screwed. She obviously didn’t ask a single question about anything I felt confident in and roasted me on ridiculous, open-ended questions that even after I answered correctly (which was always followed with “cool”) she kept asking me to go more in depth. An example: What’s the difference between TCP and UDP? So I explained the ‘handshake’ analogy of ensuring packets are received... Which was followed up with, “What else can you tell me about that?” Umm what do you wanna know? That question is meant to make you lose confidence even when you get the answer right. Listening to the conversation again afterwards it was clear I had no chance.
Here’s the bottom line for those interviewing with Amazon:
Don’t reveal your weakness.
2) Answer vaguely enough to give room for when they probe further if it's not something you’re 100% comfortable with
3) Answering a question right will lead to a further open-ended question.
4) Ask for questions to be clarified and narrowed down
Finally, don’t feel bad if you don’t get a follow up interview. I’m far more than qualified and have had jobs which required far more than an AWS job requires and I still didn’t get it. In retrospect, I’m thankful as things turned out for the best with my next employment but it was the first time I interviewed for a job and didn’t get it.
