I had an initial phone screen with HR and a first round phone interview with a Product Manager. The phone screen was very pleasant, the first round not so much. To preface, I have had many interviews where I did not get the job but felt that the process was positive and a great learning experience, so this is not coming from a place of bitterness. I have a decent job at the moment and am just looking around at some bigger names in the tech industry to make an upward move. The questions were nothing out of the ordinary, although the stressing of the STAR method and Amazon’s “unique” approach to interviewing (tell me about a time, give me an example when, yadda, yadda) prior to the interview can drive up your anxiety and make you unnecessarily overthink the whole thing. The main issue was related to the condescending tone of the follow up questions to my responses, implying that I provided useless/inaccurate data to teams I’ve supported, handled deadlines that were not truly "tight", handled requests that were not truly "difficult", did not truly go “above and beyond” for a customer. At one point, after discussing a project in which I provided a team member with data for a client meeting, it was implied that I gave out confidential information, which was completely false. I felt that I spend the entire time on defense and the interviewer definitely was a bit on the arrogant side, making lots of false assumptions. The intelligence and knowledge on the analytical side was definitely there while the emotional intelligence seemed to be lacking. Regardless, I definitely get why a lot of follow up questions are necessary as many candidates are not truthful, fluff their experience, and already have their hero stories ready to go. You want to see how a candidate thinks on their feet and ensure they can back up everything they are saying. However, when it feels like the interviewer is spending the entire time trying to generate an “ah-ha” moment, catch you in a lie, and delegitimize your experience, there is definitely an issue. I would suggest to any interviewer that if you ask follow up questions and are unsatisfied by a candidate’s response, note that their response for that particular question (or all of them) did not fit what you were looking for and keep it moving. Assume the fit is just not there rather than having someone talk in circles and unable to properly answer the remaining questions. Although this is a single individual in a global leader in the tech industry, I have to say I expected a bit better.