I did go through the online process for applying, but I also had a friend push my resumé around to five different teams with open positions. I got calls from three of them, but not the one I ultimately wanted. At first. Later on the team with the position open that I desired (they design for a e-reading device) put me through two hour long phone interviews. Each one felt like a gate. The team seemed knowledgeable about me and pretty proficient with the interview process. Typically an interview would be followed by about 1 week of waiting, and then a couple days of scheduling and then another interview. Eventually I got a packet with a 1 sheet telling me how I needed to prepare for the full day (six hour) in house interview.
I put together a 50 min presentation of three of my projects focused around responding to the extensive guidelines of what I need to explain/present in my portfolio. That sheet was a godsend, as it really helped me prepare a portfolio that showed off my work.
The next day I showed up to the headquarters at 11:30 and had my presentation in front of six members of the team. I had lunch with my would-be boss, which was nice and informal. Amz paid. Then I was taken to another part of the campus and waited in a room as six different people gave me 45 min interview sessions. There were 3 whiteboard sessions with members of the design team that I met earlier, and two interviews were really about company and corporation fit.
Honestly they seemed like very driven, performance-oriented team, very focused on output over say creativity. Very smart people for sure, and fast.
I would have worked very hard for sure on that team. Being as there were no joint-interviews I didn't get the sense of teamwork so much as bullpen that I would have liked, but that's one day and experience that is probably not representative of the way they really work.
The experience was overly-thorough, and exhausting, and I'm sure by the fourth or fifth hour it was showing. I was in those offices from 11:30 to 5:30pm.
And then... nothing. I didn't hear for a week. And then I found out in a short phone call that although they really liked me, it wasn't a fit. And Amz has a policy of not offering feedback.
I did get some VERY good advice from another interviewer on another team about what he meant by "Senior" and it was clear from him why I was not Senior, but that was a different team.
My one complaint is this: I spent probably 10 hours preparing for a six hour day, and got no feedback at all. If that's what the Amz design experience is like, it's no wonder their web experience is equally hard to comprehend.