I just wanted to share with everyone, I just got out of an interview with AWS for the position of Senior Solutions Architect.
And. it. was. brutal.
it is the hardest interview I’ve ever had, they asked me to go really into incredible detail about basically everything I thought I knew. And even though I don’t feel like I failed miserably I did felt like my feet where put on a stove.
I’m pretty sure I’m not getting the job, but this has been an eye opening experience and has given me a perspective on what topics I need to go deeper if I want to be one of the best.
I’ll be getting feedback in a few days and know for sure how far off I’m from a position like the one I applied for. I’ll post my feedback here once I receive it
UPDATE
I got the feedback from AWS and apparently I was wrong… cause I made it to the next interview!!! seems like I did way better on the technical interview than I gave myself credit. Is this what they call impostor syndrome?
I will be interviewing again in two weeks apparently it takes the whole day (6 to 8 hours) and I have to do a lot more preparation for this one. Wish me luck, I’ll share my experience here, no specifics obviously, they made me sign an NDA.
UPDATE
I had my "onsite" interview, everything was online because of COVID, and boy I have to say it was even harder that the first one. the first parts where very focused on past performance, basically recalling situations when i had to face one or another kind of challenge, when you do that for eight hours straight it wears you down, after the questioning I had to do a presentation explaining in detailed a solution that I had implemented, and as a bonus explain how would that solution could be implemented on AWS that was followed by more technical questions and some other scenarios.
I ended up exhausted, but all an all it was a very good experience, although I was not very sure how well I did………………..Until today, I got a call from one of amazon’s recruiters and she told me that I did great and all the interviewers where happy with my performance, and so…………. I got an offer to work with AWS!!!!
I so fucking happy, I still cannot believe it.
3 Answers
Congrats and good luck Rafael! Indeed that is imposter syndrome. Now, just be sure to keep the other end of that spectrum in check…the Dunning Krueger Effect.
–Scott
Thanks Scott, I’ll certainly keep de Dunning Krueger on my sigths and keep learning. You now what they said, "The more you know the less Dunning Krueger you have"
Congratulations Rafael!, I’m was really sad reading this at the start but man you’re a good story teller!! i’m really excited for you, good job and good luck on your new adventure!
Hi Rafel, Congratulations,
Hope you are enjoying your new job at AWS.
I am coming across similar positions recently through recruiters, what would like to know is how much is the pre-sales activities involved in AWS Sr, Solution Architect, or Solution Architect role? How about travel as its client-facing role?
I am presently working as an Enterprise Architect for a bank which more like dealing with in-house business groups, so little confused about the client-facing role. Appreciate if you can shed some light on a typical day as AWS Sr SA.
Thanks
Ravi
Hi Ravi, in fact SA role I got in AWS is client facing, sort of a presales role but with a heavy tecnical perspective, due to covid travel is stoped but we do work directly with clients and once COVID is over we are supposed to resume traveling
Sorry to hear about that. Just out of curiosity, where there any design questions or aws service deep level question (like ho things working internally?). If you can share without too much details to maintain the confidentiality
Hi Deepak, The questions on the interview where mostly about specific concepts (Encryption, CDN, Networking, Security, Distributed Systems, Version control) and how things worked under the hood. The interviewer stressed that I should focus the underlaying technology and to stear clear from citing AWS services on my answers
Congratulations and all the best