Amazon | SDE-1 | Banglore | Cleared

Time Frame: June – July 2022

How I Applied: I applied through a referral. The recruiter called me to discuss my current location and interests.

Number of Rounds: 4

Verdict: Selected

Hiring Process:

Online Assessment Round

Technical Interview Round 1

Technical Interview Round 2

Hiring Manager Interview

Online Assessment Round:

Platform: HackerRank

The assessment included two sections:

1. Coding Challenge: This part featured two easy coding problems to solve within 1 hour 22 minutes, along with an explanation of the approach and time complexity. Although I don’t recall the exact problems, they generally involved arrays (e.g., inserting into a sorted array using binary search, sorting arrays based on a condition).
2. Amazon Work Style Survey: This survey takes about 5-7 minutes to complete and contains questions assessing your work ethics and principles, along with your general approach to work, to determine your fit with Amazon Leadership Principles. Each question has two parts where you select from options like “most like me” or “somewhat like me.”

The following day, I received an email confirming that I had passed the online assessment round. It included details about the next three rounds and some preparatory materials and tips. My next two rounds were scheduled for the same day, with a 3-4 hour gap between them.

Technical Round 1 (60 minutes): The interviewer introduced himself and asked me to do the same. He then asked me to describe a situation where I learned something new from scratch. This took about 5 minutes before we moved on to the coding questions.

Question 1: Devise a sorting algorithm.

I started with a brute force method, and after some hints from the interviewer, I solved it using a heap. I made a mistake initially but corrected it during a dry run.

Question 2: Race Car Problem.

I attempted a dynamic programming solution but couldn’t get it to work, even with hints from the interviewer. This led to negative feedback for this round.

Technical Round 2 (60 minutes): After introductions, the interviewer presented the coding problems.

Question 1: The problem was straightforward, based on hash maps. I provided 3-4 different solutions and then optimized them further when the interviewer modified some conditions.

Question 2: A slight variant of “Burn the Binary Tree.”

I solved it but initially misquoted the time complexity. After the coding problems, we had some time left, so I asked the interviewer about the company and their projects. A few days later, I was informed that I could proceed to the next round.

Hiring Manager Interview (45 minutes): I received an email to schedule this round, which took place a week later. The interviewer asked about my past projects. He then asked me to solve two simple problems, emphasizing code quality and production-readiness.

I first wrote a naive solution and then refined it to make it cleaner. After explaining my approach and dry running the code, I asked the interviewer some questions about Amazon’s products and work culture. The interview ended with this discussion.

A few days later, I was informed of my selection.

Preparation Tips:

• Familiarize yourself with Amazon’s leadership principles and have relevant stories from past experiences. Focus on the principles most relevant to your role.
• Review your resume thoroughly, especially the projects and work experiences listed.
• Use the materials provided by Amazon with your interview schedule. These are tailored to Amazon’s interview process and will help you understand the assessment topics better.
• Practice medium to hard problems on LeetCode and GeeksForGeeks, but don’t rely solely on them. Focus on building a strong understanding of concepts and writing clean, readable code.