Amazon Interview Experience for SDE-1

After applying on the amazon career site around 30+ times and never hearing back from their side, one fine day I got a mail that they are hiring for the SDE1 position and they shortlisted my resume. They were asking if I’m still interested, and within seconds I replied to that mail positively.

Background – 2020 CS graduate with 1.5 years of experience as a Specialist Programmer in Infosys.

Online Coding Assessment: After some 2-3 days got a coding assessment link. 2 Coding questions 

• the First question was an Easy-Medium level greedy type question.
• the Second question was Medium level Dynamic Programming question.
• Then there were some LP(leadership principle ) questions in the end

After almost 10 days I got a call asking when can we schedule an interview. After that, I got mail containing the schedule of the first round of interviews.

Round 1 to 4 of the interview was divided into two parts, First, half was DSA round in the second half they were asking about CS concepts.

Round 1: The interviewer was SDE2 at Amazon. The coding question was a magnified version of the Union-Find Algorithm (Can’t Disclose Exact question due to NDA). In the second half interviewer asked me about various operating systems and network concepts.

Round 2: The coding question was based on the KMP string matching algorithm. In the second half interviewer went in-depth(more than anyone can imagine) about a particular story I had worked on in my current organization. He also suggested some design level changes which is mind-boggling for an outsider to suggest in a completely new project within 30mins.

Round 3: The coding question was printing a particular view(like bottom-top, mirror, invert) of an incomplete binary tree. I suggested 3 ways one after another but Interviewer wanted more and more optimization. At last, we agreed on a particular implementation. He again asked about basic operating system concepts.

Round 4: The coding question was based on DFS and BFS. In this round, I was asked about amazon’s leadership principal.

Last Round (Hiring Manager): The interviewer was an SDM with more than 20 years of experience. This round was mainly focused on the Amazon leadership principle you are required to indirectly communicate that you comply with Amazon leadership Principals. He also enquired about my current project and the impact I was delivering. 

Verdict (May 23, 2022): I got a call from HR informing me that I was selected. Things to remember:

• Revise CS Concepts before the interview. I was asked in-depth about semaphores in 3rd round.
• Practice standard problems from GFG and Leetcode.
• Always write clean readable code in the interview with proper variable names and indentation.
• Amazon leadership principles are very important. 
• Know in and out of your current Project.