Recently, I was approached by an AWS recruiter about a role at AWS. At first, I was glad to receive another interview call from AWS, but then I started to realize that it might go the same way it went the last 4 times. I always knew I had the skills to do the job that I was applying for, but something didn’t click on the last 4 occasions. However, something inside me kept telling me – give it a shot, what’s the worst that could possibly happen? You would get rejected and it wasn’t something new to me. Therefore, I agreed to go through the interview process. However, I told myself that I would do things differently to avoid the same outcome and I was right. With enough perseverance anything is possible. Therefore, I decided to document my journey (which began back in 2016) from failing 4 onsite interviews, to getting an offer from Amazon.

Failure #1 – Herndon, Virginia:

Towards the end of my master’s program, I got the opportunity to interview with Amazon. First, I received a call from a recruiter, and she asked me for my availability to schedule a phone interview. I provided my availability and gave the phone interview from the student center located on campus at RIT. A couple of days later, I was notified that I was selected to go to the onsite or loop interview. I started preparing for the onsite interview and felt confident after passing the phone interview and completing my master’s with a 4.0 GPA. However, things didn’t go according to my plans. Although I answered some of the questions asked during the final interview rounds, I didn’t feel confident about getting an offer. I got an email a few days after the loop interview to notify me that I didn’t get selected. Although this wasn’t the outcome that I was hoping for, it was expected.

Failure #2 – Denver, Colorado:

An AWS recruiter contacted me on LinkedIn and informed me about a Technical Account Manager (TAM) position available at AWS’ Denver office. At first, I thought it might not be a position for me as I always considered myself a technical resource and wasn’t sure how I would fit in. However, I still decided to give it a try and started preparing. I had my phone interview with a TAM which included technical as well as behavioral questions. I passed the phone interview and was selected for the onsite interview. Around the same time, I was going through a couple of courses on AWS so I decided to brush up my AWS skills prior to the onsite interview. I tried to learn from my mistakes made 3 years ago and prepared for the loop interview. I felt confident on the interview day considering the knowledge that I had gained on AWS and 3 years of work experience. Hence, I had more stories to share. Although I thought that I performed well on the interview day, I still didn’t get that vibe that would tell me I would get it. I thought they were looking for a person with more experience and not necessarily from a technical background. A couple of weeks after my final interview, I was notified that I wasn’t selected. The recruiter did tell me that the interviewers liked the overall profile and how I performed, but my skillset didn’t exactly match with what they were looking for. Although I felt bad, I wasn’t too disappointed as I knew that I had applied for a job that didn’t exactly match with my core skills.

Failure #3 – Portland, Oregon:

After I failed the second AWS interview, I spent some time to understand what went wrong and how I could improve. As I was in the middle of that, I received an email from an AWS recruiter and he asked me if I was interested in a Cloud Support Engineer (CSE) role at Portland, Oregon. The wounds from the last defeat were still fresh so I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go through it again as the overall interview process could be energy sapping. As the role matched with my skillset, I decided to try again. I always like to document what went wrong when things don’t go according to my plans. Hence, I referred to my notes from my previous interviews and started preparing again. I passed the phone interview easily and was invited for the final interview. The final onsite interview round 1 went as per my expectations so I started feeling confident, but then things started to go south and I couldn’t really answer some questions with confidence and that affected my overall performance on the remaining interviews. When I stepped out of the building, I knew I wouldn’t get it. I didn’t get the job, but I did get another badge of failure.

Failure #4 – Seattle, Washington:

After failing 3 times, I thought about surrendering as receiving these many rejection calls/emails after putting in lots of efforts can be very painful sometimes. Although I was rejected many times, my love towards AWS remained the same. Hence, when I was preparing for the AWS Solutions Architect associate exam, I came across a Cloud Ops Engineer position which I thought would match with my skillset. I decided to apply and was approached by a recruiter for the initial conversation. The phone conversation with the recruiter went well and my phone interview was scheduled. Although, I couldn’t answer a couple of questions, I still thought the phone interview went well. I hoped for the best and did receive a call from the same recruiter informing me that I was selected for the final round. It was time to sharpen the skills I acquired throughout my career and be prepared on the interview day. As always, I referred to my notes taken after each failure/rejection and started preparing accordingly. I ensured that I had enough stories for Amazon leadership principles and worked on the technical part. I faced some technical issues on the interview day which added some delay to begin the first interview. I was nervous a little bit after that, but I tried really hard not to have an impact of that on my performance. I thought the 3 technical interviews went well, but I wasn’t confident about the bar raiser interview and the interview with the hiring manager. One peculiar thing about this final interview was, there were 5 rounds instead of 4. My brain was completely drained out after the final interview. I still thought that I would get it considering my performance on the technical rounds. I waited for a few days but didn’t receive any feedback. I considered that as another rejection and moved on.

SUCCESS #1 – Portland, Oregon:

As described earlier, I was getting rejected, but I never let my passion towards AWS die. After the 4th rejection, I recertified my Cloud Practitioner certification and achieved the AWS Certified Solutions Architect associate certification. I was very happy after achieving my second AWS certification. I then worked on 2 of my favorite Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools called Ansible and Terraform and started doing lots of practice with those. When I felt comfortable working on those tools, I then successfully configured and deployed environments using those tools at my workplace. I also then worked on polishing my personal portfolio website and created a new site for my blogs. Around this time, I received an email from an AWS recruiter who asked me if I was interested in a CSE role at Portland, Oregon. I never had doubts with my skills, but I just didn’t know what else did I have to do to convince them that I would do the job. I started to run out ideas and the notes which I had gathered from the previous interviews didn’t really help much. As described at the start of this blog, I didn’t feel motivated to go through the entire process again, but then something inside me kept telling me “do it and don’t quit. If this doesn’t go well then you would only get another rejection (something which I was very familiar with by now)”. The recruiter informed me that if I was interested then I would have to take an assessment test before I could go through the interview process. I was very busy at work back then as a new release was coming up, so I didn’t have time to study for the test. Hence, I requested the recruiter to extend the deadline to submit the assessment test, the recruiter agreed and gave me a few additional days to submit the test. When the product went GA, I took the test and passed. I then had a couple of calls with the recruiter which included a phone interview. I was notified at the end of the second phone interview that I passed and was selected for the final round of interviews. This time I didn’t refer to my notes and started from scratch. I didn’t want my previous experiences to have any impact on my final interview. I came up with a plan and executed it. I went through the final round of interviews and felt very happy with the overall experience. The changes that I had made in my preparation did help me perform better this time. I thought I would get it but didn’t want to assume anything considering my previous experiences. I didn’t receive any feedback for 3 days after the final interview and I started thinking I didn’t get it. However, this time I didn’t feel that bad as I had prepared well and thought my interviews went well. Then on Oct 1 at 1:09 PM, my phone rang, and it was a call from a recruiter from Amazon. He asked me how my interviews went and what I felt about them. I shared my feedback with him. He then said those golden words which I waited to hear for more than 4 and a half years. I was so happy and started crying after the call. I received an email with a job offer within an hour after the call. I accepted the job on the same day and am now looking forward to joining Amazon. Here are a few things which I learned from this whole experience:

  • You may not need these many attempts to get into your dream company. Maybe I was just unfortunate, but I kept trying.
  • No doesn’t mean never and you only have to be right once to achieve your goal.
  • When you are so used to winning, rejections can be so gut wrenching. Accept rejections as you only have 2 options, give up and move on or keep trying.
  • Nothing is given, everything is earned. If you want something, you must work hard to get it.
  • Don’t give up on your dreams. Keep fighting and trying. With enough perseverance, your time will come.

Lastly, I want to end this blog with a line that’s so close to my heart which is “hara wahi jo lada nahi” which means those who haven’t fought, are the ones who lost.
Good luck and all the best for whatever you are chasing in your lives.