Amazon · rejectedFour rounds, a full day of my life, and the feedback was a sentence a template could have written. I do not need a dissertation, but a single concrete thing to improve would turn this from a dead end into a lesson.
"Closer fit" is HR for "we cannot legally tell you the real reason". Do not read into it.
The math has never mathed and it never will. Either you are hiring a time traveler or you copy-pasted the JD from a senior posting and forgot to read it.
Apply anyway. The "requirements" are a wishlist, not a filter, half the time.
Amazon · rejectedPhone screen was one DSA + LP stories. Onsite was four rounds: coding, LOD/system design, a behavioral-only round, and the Bar Raiser. Coding went fine but I clearly under-prepared the LPs. Have 2-3 STAR stories per principle, they dig into "tell me about a time" hard. Bar…
The Bar Raiser round is where I fell apart too. They keep asking "and then what happened" until you crack.
Fourteen syllables to avoid one honest word. The thesaurus worked harder that week than the retention team ever did.
"Rightsizing", "streamlining", "involuntary attrition". The euphemism budget is bottomless.
You've reached the Mariana Trench. That's everything for now.