IMDb Interview Questions
& Process

Since I went through campus recruitment, there were only 2 main stages: first, a 30-min technical phone screen, and second, a 4-round onsite interview. The phone screen had an easy-level question, and the interviewer was really nice and communicative. The onsite interview was well-organized with 3 technical rounds that included some behavioral questions, and 1 round that was purely behavioral. I thought the questions were mid-level difficulty. Most interviewers were helpful in guiding me. This was a surprisingly good experience, especially since IMDb is part of Amazon and I'd heard negative things about Amazon's interview process. The technical recruiter worked hard to schedule everything given my time constraints and prepped us for the onsite interviews with several calls. The only downside was that morning interviews were quite early, making it tough for those with long commutes. Overall, IMDb seems like a great team within Amazon.

I submitted my CV through a colleague who knew they were hiring. A few days later, I got a call from Amazon (IMDb is part of Amazon) to set up a quick chat. After that, I had to submit my CV again through the Amazon.com jobs portal. A few days after that, I got another email saying my application was moving forward to the next stage: a 45-minute phone interview. The interviewer was pretty chill and friendly, and they were a manager at IMDb. Since it's an IMDb position, they asked about my interest in film, media, etc. A couple of days after the long phone call with the manager, I got an email inviting me for an in-person interview with the IMDb team. They said the day would involve 5 separate 45-minute interviews with different people from the team and management. Sadly, they ended up canceling and I never heard back.

The interview process kicked off with an online coding test. After that, I had a series of five 1-hour in-person interviews on the same day. There's a big focus on behavioral questions, which felt quite scripted and didn't really explore how I work. Each interview slot also included a brief coding exercise at the end. However, due to the time constraints, these coding parts felt a bit superficial. If you didn't immediately nail their expected solution, there wasn't enough time to discuss or refine it, leaving me unsure about my performance. While I'm sure they hire great people, this method seems inefficient and might cause them to overlook some really strong candidates.

The interview process is really drawn out, with a big focus on behavioural questions. It feels like they're just going through the motions and not really getting to know the candidate beyond a list of questions. Despite Amazon's emphasis on leadership principles, I didn't see much evidence of them following them during the interviews. The whole thing took about a week of my work time, plus two days off. They only asked about me, my background, and my company once at the very beginning of the 3-month process. No one seemed to connect their questions to the candidate's specific background or validate their assumptions about the candidate. It's strange, but the process felt rushed even though it was so long-winded.