The path to a job at the Amazon Developer Center in Edinburgh is locally reckoned to be quite arduous. Since I recently successfully reached the destination, I thought I'd detail the route.

I am very inexperienced at the software development job application game. I have had only one significant employer previously, whom I joined after about two hours interview back when it was a start-up and my partner was the founder's babysitter. Therefore I'm not well-placed to judge the supposedly intense ADC selection process relative to the prevailing norm, and I'll leave such opinions and comparisons to the end.


So... I registered on-line, applying for this job as a Software Engineer. (Tsk, that should be "Software Developer".) I submitted a one page CV, freshly written since I hadn't looked for a job in eight years, and answers (one to two hundred words each) to six standard-looking job form questions. Friend, former co-worker and Amazon incumbent Andy Birkett recommended me for an alleged accelerated application process.

A month later I had a half-hour telephone interview with Obvious Solutions, an external recruitment company that ADC use to filter applicants. It didn't sound as if this could be anything but the first stage of a long process, so I nudged Andy and indeed it looked as if the intended acceleration had gone astray. I got invited for interview at the Obvious offices in Linlithgow shortly thereafter. In preparation, I watched some introductory videos and also fleshed the CV out following a request for more details.


The Obvious assessment was in five stages, the first two of which had pass marks associated with them. These were a multiple choice quiz by ADC on your choice of C++ or Java, then a language comprehension, numerical and abstract reasoning trio of tests that I understand are often taken by UK graduates on entering the job market - ADC want you to be scoring comparably with their current staff. The day I attended there were five other candidates present, and nobody was knocked out in these initial rounds - however, I've subsequently heard of other days where almost the reverse happened, so hard to judge how high this initial barrier is. The first stage was mostly general knowledge of data structures and the programming language, not so much interaction with concrete code. The second was quite time-pressured - read, answer, and move on, with precious little chance to revisit. Afterward all present admitted surprise at how rusty their arithmetic was!

One of the other three stages was a psychometric test - no wrong answers per se (well, apart from some baby puzzles right at the end.) Also there were two stages captured to video camera. One was what I would term a "soft HR" interview with Obvious - general chat, some exploration of answers from the application form, and the odd "tell me about a time when..." question. (I dislike those. You end up presenting a context-free caricature of an arbitrarily chosen experience.) The other involved preparing an answer to a technical challenge and then presenting it to (camera and) a visiting member of ADC staff.


Following the day at Obvious I believe further serious pruning takes place, because the next round is expensive for ADC.

About two weeks later I got an invite to interview at the Development Center itself. ADC boss Matt Round opens and closes these on-site days, and I suspect his continental availability may be one of the bottlenecks in their recruitment process - my invite was for the Wednesday after next. Being an autistically focused cretin I managed to ignore the date in the e-mail subject line and turn up exactly one week early. They were all very nice as I apologised and shamefacedly shuffled out from their South Queensferry office.

Anyway, one week later... as leader of the ADC, Matt is a very technical businessman (or vice versa) with impressive energy, and the opening hour covered lots of ground. Knowledge of lower-level data structures and algorithms were emphasized in the job advert and the earlier interview, and I knew I was weak in that area due to theoretical math/computer science degrees followed by higher-level product development in industry. In preparation for this job application I read a book or two, which helped earlier in the process, but so much on this final day, since the opening session included a correct mutual assessment of my areas of expertise so that subsequent interview content could be best focused.

(The books, of course, were purchased from my prospective employer! As was a copy of Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, since web apps are something else I'd never had to do for real. This was of zero use for the interview, but I thought it was great, and I highly recommend it as a introduction to the topic.)

The rest of the day followed the Joel Spolsky interview model - in turn, five or six of my would-be peers each spent about an hour with me in a room with a whiteboard (and a restaurant with a lunch), talking about software development and giving me opportunities to demonstrate I could think and communicate. This was all so much fun! A whole day talking about software with smart people who were working an agile process in a fresh context, and exploring the odd puzzle. The day at Obvious was much more nerve-wracking - I returned from this later one tired but happy, with good vibes and promise of a decision in a few days.


Vibes and happiness were subsequently sorely tested by said decision actually taking two weeks. Subsequent phone and contract tag meant I didn't actually complete the process until a whole month after the on-site interview, three months after the original on-line application. Grrr.

But apart from this long elapsed time and the accompanying progress opacity, I was impressed by the ADC recruitment system. The initial outsourcing is appropriate and seemed to work OK, and the large investment of staff time in the process is laudable. But, I think, it is obviously appropriate and the effort should not be as surprising or unusual as people claim to find it. ADC (and their applicants) are simply paying the large necessary cost involved in a software development company hiring suitable staff. Others should stop skimping.

Actually, given the enthusiasm for agile technical practice at ADC, I think their recruitment process may be a little too by-the-book Joel. They are hiring someone who will spend significant time at work writing code with them - but they haven't yet seen me do this! Why was there no pair programming session? You have to pick the right size task, and avoid or compensate for e.g. the impedance of a new environment or the unusual power dynamic of the pairing - but we cope fine with analogous challenges in conversational interviews. I feel I learn so much about a developer in the first hour I pair with them, and I do not understand why the tactic is not employed in interview. Hell, if it could be made to work contractually, I'd pay each potential candidate to work with the team for one iteration, and do my selection based on that.


Well, I hope some of the above was helpful to someone. (Not you, naan bread fellow Voxar employee. That's against the non-competition agreement we signed!)

Tags: software_development