Amazon Discover Review

Amazon Discover involved multiple workshops that included things like day in a life of an amazonian (software engineer) on day 1, this included what a typical amazonian swe's responsibilities and things thats they did were throughout a day such as meetings, coding, code reviews among other amazon culture things. We also had multiple coding workshops on debugging, data structures and algorithms such as graphs and hashmaps aswell as typical software engineering processes such as CI/CD pipelines.

I learnt more about the interview process like about the behavioural interview process, which included the STAR method to answer questiosn as well as new techincal knowledge about computer science, particularly about properly debugging code and graph algorithm. I also developed my communication skills as we worked as part of a 5 man team throught the 2 day event, I also understood what my life would be like if i were to become a software engineer in a big company like amazon, aswell as what skills they value (amazon leadership principles)

It was interesting to get such a deep insight into one of the worlds largest companies, particularly an insight into what type of person amazon recruiters are looking for. I understood that they are looking for people who are competent in solving some really difficult problems while have a myriad of other behavioural and technical skills to allow them to work effectively with others. It seemed that amazon had lots of roles and oppurtunities for new grads and internships, such as a general SWE and AWS internship, this was good to know as I wasn't sure what types of internships they offered.

The company culture definitely seemed quite strict yet relaxed but strict for good reason. They wanted us to understand amazon wanted people who deliver results, however from the insight event from day 1 on the day in life in the Q&A panel, it seemed that the SWE that worked there weren't that stressed which was nice, meaning while results were the first priority, they still valued their workers and their mental health / other benefits for them.

I enjoyed it alot, especially because of how much I was able to learn about a large company like amazon, what at typical software engineer is like at amazon aswell as the whole recruiting process. It was also nice to work with other students studying CS or other fields throughout the UK and spain and I really enjoyed the technical workshops which allowed me to gain knowledge that I wouldn't have developed this early in my career otherwise.

Yes

Make sure to spend adequate time on the behavioural interview, amazon are looking for people who are good at both technical aspects as well as having strong soft skills. Also, make sure to look at the amazon leadership principles, always relate your behaviour question answers that you may be asked to them, and try to include numerical data to back them up aswell as amazon is a data driven company as stated in the event, i would also do leetcode for the technical aspect.