I was the surprise interviewer in the exact same scenario (well, not at Amazon, but same general idea) and was later cross examined, mostly by HR, about how well I thought he'd be able to help me if I came to him. The HR cross examination about his ability was all touchy-feely questions not technical (did what he say sound nice, not, did what he say make logical sense when passed thru the well known engineer BS filter). Position had one of those estimates of 25% helping other people with problems and group work, and he would have been hanging out near me although somewhat different kind of work, so it seemed fair for me to ask him noob questions about his expertise, just to see how he would talk to someone on the team from a different background. He was an expert in C++ if I recall correctly.
All went pretty well with me, although they didn't hire him (donno why)
The part of the story that was weird is I was an old-timer at that employer not a noob. Why they'd assign a noob to evaluate indicates either extreme trust or extreme desperation WRT the noob. Or he was playing you. If you really needed a question answered HR would take care of it.
I was the surprise interviewer in the exact same scenario (well, not at Amazon, but same general idea) and was later cross examined, mostly by HR, about how well I thought he'd be able to help me if I came to him. The HR cross examination about his ability was all touchy-feely questions not technical (did what he say sound nice, not, did what he say make logical sense when passed thru the well known engineer BS filter). Position had one of those estimates of 25% helping other people with problems and group work, and he would have been hanging out near me although somewhat different kind of work, so it seemed fair for me to ask him noob questions about his expertise, just to see how he would talk to someone on the team from a different background. He was an expert in C++ if I recall correctly.
All went pretty well with me, although they didn't hire him (donno why)
The part of the story that was weird is I was an old-timer at that employer not a noob. Why they'd assign a noob to evaluate indicates either extreme trust or extreme desperation WRT the noob. Or he was playing you. If you really needed a question answered HR would take care of it.