While of course there are limits to how fast you can get back to candidates, you should know that from "we'd like to schedule a first-round interview" to "we do/don't have a position for you", Microsoft is about 5 times faster than you, and Amazon is about 15 times faster. That's the case for or internships, anyway, to which my experience is limited. I've heard it's pretty much the same story for full time positions.
When I interviewed with Google it was under 2 months from first contact until they sent me an offer letter. I have not interviewed with either MS or Amazon, but I'm quite sure neither one hires senior engineers in a week.
This whole thread is anecdotal, but they are still interesting anecdotes, so here goes. Here's my experience with these companies:
Microsoft: Interviewed with them for an Internship. Very organized, on campus recruiting followed by a fly up and an offer a couple months after the job fair where I submitted my resume.
Amazon: Interviewed for a full time job. I went through two rounds of interviews with one team in under two weeks from submitting my resume; they said my domain-knowledge wasn't a good fit for that team but another team was interested. About two months passed before any follow-up on that, but once that did happen I had three rounds of interviews with that team and an offer within three weeks.
Google: Interviewed with them for an internship. Gave my resume to them. Did not hear anything for about 2 months. Then I got a notification that they wanted to schedule the first round of an interview. Great. Another two months pass, no updates. I get another offer and let them know they have only a few weeks to decide.
Near the end of that few weeks, they call to schedule a phone interview for the following day. Based on one hour-long phonecall with a manager who asked pretty much just basic screener questions, they give me an offer later that day. At that point, for all they knew I could have been someone who could barely code! Granted, this was for an internship so the downside risk to Google was much lower: the internship would have essentially been an expensive three-month interview.
Interestingly, Google and Microsoft did not even consider my resume for full-time positions. The Microsoft recruiter even handed my resume back to me at a recruitment fair, which is the only time I've ever seen that happen! The reason was I did not have a Bachelors degree because I had left to do a startup. When my startup folded, I thought that the experience that had left me would allow me to find something at any of the major big companies (where I could save cash and get ready my next startup), and fortunately Amazon did see this as a positive while Google and MS were hung up on the degree.
A week for a local candidate wasn't unusual when I worked at Amazon (AWS was hiring a lot). After leaving I ended up looking around and got offers from both Google and Microsoft. Google was at least 4x slower and was generally frustrating (took them a month to get back to me after the phone screen). I ended up in a startup. Several people I know had the same experience.
