AWS' developer conference, re:Invent, wraps up Friday, but the company has already dropped a major product—AWS Outposts—that will increase its addressable market and heat up competition with Microsoft's Azure.

“AWS Outposts bring native AWS services, infrastructure, and operating models to virtually any data center, co-location space, or on-premises facility for a truly consistent and seamless hybrid cloud,” according to Amazon's announcement.

While hybrid cloud models aren't a new idea, the decision to roll out an all-in-one AWS hybrid solution is a big departure from AWS' previous pure-cloud strategy. The shift is another example of Amazon's willingness to change fundamental business strategies based on customer needs.

As Jeff Bezos wrote in his 2016 letter to shareholders: “There are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor focused, you can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model focused, and there are more. But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality.”

Despite AWS' background, it understands there are companies that will never use a pure-cloud service. Instead of accepting those companies simply fall outside AWS' core demographic, it built a product especially for them. As Dave Bartoletti of Forester Research has said, “No one thought AWS would do bare metal, until they did in conjunction with VMware. No one thought AWS would run in the data center, either, until they built the underlying technology to make it happen without sacrificing the fully managed experience they provide in the public cloud.”

With Outpost, AWS has shown that, like its parent company, it wants to be an “Everything Store.” Regardless of competition, margins, or its pre-existing operating model, AWS is willing to wade into a new market if it provides something customers want.

It remains to be seen if AWS Outpost—which AWS describes as a “truly consistent” hybrid solution— will succeed against Microsoft's well-established Azure Stack—which Microsoft describes as “the only consistent” hybrid solution.

However, AWS' entrance into the market signals that the fight for the cloud is far from over and that, for the foreseeable future, it will remain one of the hottest markets for startups and talent.

What startups really mean by “Why should we hire you?”



While whiteboard interviews may catch heat from some people for being impractical or indexing for the wrong qualities, they are not deceptive. Even with the most labyrinthian Leetcode exercise, you don't have to guess at what the interviewer is “really” asking.

The non-technical interview, however, is more of a puzzle. Hiring managers are trying to dig into your personality, assess your fortitude, and understand your core values. Every question they ask has a subtext, and if you can't translate it, you risk giving a terrible answer.

To help, we've taken three of the most common non-technical interview questions, translated what they're really asking, and given you a framework for answering. Just for fun, we included examples of terrible answers we've heard in interviews, too.