r/amazonemployees • u/Money-Jackfruit2013 • 8h ago

Phone screen interview

So i received a mail from amazon saying

We reviewed the resume you sent for our Application Security Engineer, AWS Security (ID: 10550878) position in Seattle , and are excited to speak with you!

We would like to schedule a phone interview to discuss this opportunity at Amazon.

Please, fill out your interview availability and we will schedule a call with you.

What should i expect from this call its a L5 position, while schedulling it said to book for 60 minutes so bit confused is it more off a techincal or just logistics and about opportunities.

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

1

u/yellowjacket694 7h ago

I just passed mine last week for L5 SDE. I got a couple leadership principle questions where they wanted a STAR story. And I got one leetcode medium to code without an IDE while talking through it. The resources they provide on how to prep in the emails after your interview are scheduled are actually pretty helpful. Good Luck!

1

u/Money-Jackfruit2013 7h ago

Congrats!! Thanks for sharing this, so i did't had OA or any inital call. Today i received a mail saying schedule a phone interview. So would this be a introductory call or the one as you said?

1

u/yellowjacket694 7h ago

Not sure if you haven’t had an OA yet. Could be either

1

u/akornato 4h ago

A 60-minute slot for an L5 AWS security role is a technical phone screen, not an informal recruiter chat or a quick review of opportunities. You will speak with a security engineer or a manager from the team, and they use this hour as a direct filter for the full onsite loop. The first fifteen to twenty minutes typically center on Amazon Leadership Principles, where you will need to describe real situations and outcomes using the STAR framework. The rest of the hour focuses on technical application security fundamentals, secure code review, threat modeling, and identifying common vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting, injection attacks, or broken authorization logic.

To prepare, map out several detailed project stories that highlight ownership, customer obsession, and how you made tough risk decisions under pressure. Expect the interviewer to present a practical scenario, such as a snippet of vulnerable code or a basic cloud architecture, and ask you to find the risks and propose clear mitigations. Structuring your thoughts out loud under pressure can be tricky, which is why my team created an interviews.chat to help job seekers communicate more effectively and land top offers.

1

u/HelloTaleproof 3h ago

The 60-minute booking alone doesn't tell you whether this is a recruiter conversation or an engineering screen. Ask the coordinator who you'll meet and whether to expect coding, security scenarios or behavioral questions. That is more reliable than borrowing the format from an SDE interview.

For the story side, choose a real security decision where you weighed competing risks. Be ready to explain the threat, what you personally investigated, why you chose one mitigation over another, and how you checked the outcome. Keep a short version ready, then expand when asked. Review technical fundamentals separately rather than assuming STAR preparation covers the whole call.

If you'd like a second look at that decision story, bring it to Taleproof for a free story assessment.