> because someone thought "outside the box".

That's "thinking for the company" which I had rarely seen during my 10 years working for a large company. "Thinking for myself / department" approach is much more common, unfortunately.

True, true, too.

But I just appreciated that could have so easily been a 'thanks for your time', handshake and leave, with no-one satisfied.

I'm suspicious based on something you said about the interviewers being disinterested and unenthusiastic. I am cynical, having seen this process played out many times, and having wasted more than a few days interviewing for jobs I had zero chance of earning because the employer had already (yet unofficially and potentially illegally) chosen a candidate. Let me explain:

What you've described sounds to me like a setup for hiring an H1B employee. The employer is legally required to interview everyone who meets the requirements, and must hire qualified domestic employees if they are available for work, but the employer will look for any reason to disqualify domestic candidates.

A whole industry of consultants popped up a decade ago that coached companies on how to use this "loophole" to favor H1B over domestic employees (which is on it's face, illegal. If a US employee is available, the employer must hire him so the trick is to find a way to disqualify this domestic candidate.)

Or maybe they already had an internal candidate and were required by HR to interview some additional people (e.g. you) before they discover, to everyone's surprise, the internal candidate is the very best one for the job. "Going through the motions" to interview others when their mind was made up before the job description was even written.

EDIT: Just so it's clear, I'm not saying Amazon does these things; and I don't know anything about this particular case. I am saying this sort of faux-interview happens in the industry, and has the same "feel" of the interviewers simply going through the motions.

This is a common misunderstanding about H-1B. For hiring someone on H-1B, the employer need not prove that they made attempts to hire a citizen or permanent resident first. But to sponsor an employee on H-1B for green card, they have to provide such a proof. What you describe happens during that process - you have an employee you are happy with, want to sponsor her for permanent residency in the country, and are willing to go through the expenses, but state insists that you have to try find another person first.

The right solution for this is to keep employers out of the skill-based immigration process.

That's a perfectly acceptable concern to have. Especially with Microsoft, and its use of the big three agencies, H1B in general, perma-temps, etc.

However, there was a bit more to the story - one, that I'd started discussions with them and the agency prior to moving from Australia to Seattle, and they'd been willing to sponsor a visa (that wasn't needed), and sure enough, a couple of weeks after, my team had some new testers who weren't H1B who'd filled the position.

And it might be a little misleading on my part, there wasn't a sense of absolute, outright apathy. But just a growing more deflated tiredness, perhaps.

That's a funny story, thanks for sharing.