I got an interview through an employee referral. They were very quick about getting back to me and scheduling the first phone screen, which was with the hiring manager. The recruiter called me the day before and very thoroughly explained the process to me and allowed me to ask any questions, which was appreciated. She also sent along some articles and the Leadership Principles to review.
The interview with the hiring manager was intense, but overall went well. I was asked about 9 behavioral questions related to the leadership principles, and 3 simple questions related to technical skills. The phone interview took up the entire 60 minutes, and at the end the hiring manager gave me feedback that I did well (which was unexpected - it was odd to receive feedback on how I did right away).
About 2 days later, the recruiter sent a very nice email saying unfortunately they will not be moving me forward -- I assume it had something to do with fit, or maybe there was a more promising candidate, since the hiring manager apparently thought I did ok during the first loop. I would definitely want the hiring team to be excited about hiring me, so I thought this was really fair, and the interview experience up until this point was perfect.
Then, the recruiter then found another team who would like to interview me instead, and they mentioned that that team would pick up where the first team left off. After the recruiter from Design handed off my candidacy to the other team, the 2nd recruiter asked me to send him some times for him to call me and provide more information on the other role. I replied with some availability, and the 2nd recruiter never emailed me back. I'm not sure if he just completely missed my email, or if they decided to move forward with other candidates - who knows? This was my first experience of being ghosted between interview rounds.
From my experience, it seems that Amazon has a really good process in place and the recruiters try to help you along the way, but perhaps they have such a high volume of applicants that some things fall through the cracks. I probably would have emailed again to follow up had I been interested in continuing with Amazon, but I only really wanted to work for the team that I specifically applied to. But the fact that they allow you to continue the interview process for different teams without having to start all over again is definitely a huge pro.
