Amazon Interview Experience
By: Vikram Mondal
Tags: Coding, Interview, Interview Questions, Interview Experience, Amazon

I applied at Amazon via their job portal for various positions. I had been applying continuously for various SDE-1 positions for over a year at Amazon before I finally received a link for their Online Assessment, that also just a week before my 8th-semester final exams. So if you are not receiving a link for the online Assessment then don’t be disheartened, keep applying, they will have to give up in front of your determination and perseverance.

Online Round :

There were two questions:

The first one was a simple array question and it could be solved using the brute force method. The second question was based on finding the shortest route between two points. It could be solved using the BFS algorithm.

I got full marks for the first question, and for the second question, I got 16/20.

Most of my fellow batch mates who received the OA link got full marks in both questions, so I wasn’t expecting an interview call. But guess what? Despite not getting full scores I received an interview call, while many didn’t get a call even with full scores. So never forget that your resume plays a very important role in you getting selected. So always make your resume very carefully and tailor it according to the job description.

I received an interview call from HR after 45 days. I was invited for 2 interview rounds. These were purely technical rounds and were taken by SDE-2s. The HR would try to set up the interview in a short time, but take your time and ask for a minimum of a week’s time and a maximum of two week’s time for preparation. I would not recommend more than two weeks because they would be interviewing multiple people for the same role and they could select someone else in that time. So speed matters for Amazon. The interview was conducted over chime and a shared code editor.

Round 1: Interview Round 1

There was only one interviewer and they will first introduce themselves and then ask you to introduce yourself. The first question was another question related to arrays. It used a modified version of the binary search. The second question was based on Linked List. For both, the questions first tell them the brute force solution and then explain the optimized method. They will ask you to make slight optimizations that won’t necessarily change the time complexity but can save computations. Explain to them the time and space complexity. Then he asked me what was a technical challenge I faced in my project. Follow the STAR method for giving your answer. Think out loud. Ask for feedback during the questions and ask for clarification if you didn’t understand any part. In my first question, the interviewer actually gave the incorrect example and so there was a slight confusion for a few minutes, but due to continuous questions from my end, he realized the mistake and corrected it. So Don’t be afraid to ask questions for clarification. In the end, he asked me if I had any questions. Be sure to ask some questions that would leave a positive impression on the interviewer.

Round 2: Interview Round 2

This was again taken by an SDE2 and started with a brief introduction. The first question was related to stacks. This question could be solved by arrays but wouldn’t be optimal, so using stacks improved the solution. The second question was based on hashmaps. For this question, I had to correct my solution 2 times, as I was missing a few edge cases, but the interviewer was very friendly and asked me to check for edge cases. I was able to figure them out and made successful changes. Finally, I was able to reach the correct solution. So the most important thing you can take from this is to stay calm and composed even when you are not able to reach the correct solution on the first try. It’s completely OK to make mistakes as long as you are able to correct them with small hints. And even if you are not able to reach the final solution, you could get selected if you were interactive and approaching it in the right way. Always discuss edge cases and be as interactive as possible with the interviewer. Again keep a question ready that you would want to ask the interviewer. Be organic in your conversation with the interviewer.

Round 3: 3rd and 4th Interview Round

Both these rounds were managerial rounds. The interviews started with a brief introduction of what domain the managers were working in. You should pay a lot of attention to these introductions as asking some questions related to their domain at the end would fetch your really good points. Both the managers dived right into my internships, and my projects. These questions should be answered keeping in mind the LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES using the STAR technique. In the 3rd round, I was even asked to draw the system design of my projects and he asked me very targeted questions regarding the design, something which I had not prepared very well, but luckily I knew the projects well and was able to adapt at the moment. So be sure to have in-depth knowledge about your project and if you are not sure about some project then it’s best to avoid talking about it. Always talk about what you did in the project and avoid using the word “We” and prefer using “I”. AND NEVER COPY PROJECTS. They are smart enough to understand if you made the project on your own or copied it from someone else. So it would definitely put you in a very bad spot. I was also asked a commonly asked design question. So it is safe to prepare design questions too for interviews. A few fact-based questions were asked in the 4th round. These questions are to check your curiosity about technology. These were related to some technologies that we use on a day to day basis and their workings, not in-depth workings but on a high level. The only way you would be able to answer them is if you had read it somewhere before. Luckily I had read these questions before just out of curiosity, so yeah sometimes your good karma does help. In the end both the managers asked me if I had a question, and I was able to ask a really good question, as the manager answered it for 7–8 minutes and thanked me for asking it. We often underestimate the power of a really insightful question asked at the end, this is an opportunity to showcase to the manager that you are more than just another coder and that you think and care deeply about the work and the organization.

After about 5 days I received an offer from Amazon.

In the end, I would say that it took me more than 200 applications to get an interview call at Amazon, so don’t be disheartened by setbacks and failures. Just keep going. Use them to improve yourself and grow as a person.

“NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP” — Winston Churchill.