Amazon Interview Experience for SDE-II Bangalore

Hi all,

Recently went through the amazon interview process for the SDE-2 position in amazon Bangalore. I was approached by an amazon recruiter on LinkedIn and briefly discussed the kind of role I’m looking forward to and what amazon can offer me.

Hackerrank Online Round: Don’t remember the exact questions, but there were 2 coding problems and some system design & approach based questions, given for some particular scenarios (what kind of db, queue, how to groom a PRD or how to kick start a new project etc..).
Difficulty level: Medium

First Technical Round: I was grilled almost 20-25 mins on LP. Two coding questions: ZIG-ZAG Level Order BST, Sliding Window Maximum
Difficulty level: Medium

Second Round: Low-Level design for book My Show kind of service. 10-15 mins of LP
Difficulty level: Medium

Third Round (Hiring Manager): High-Level Design and many project-related discussions. Why some discussions were made in a certain manner. Many LP questions were infused with interviewer questions.
Difficulty level: Medium

Bar-Raiser Round: For me, this was a little tough, as I was not able to bond with the interviewer. There were LP questions for 30-35 mins, and rest of the time I was asked to solve two coding problems (one medium + one medium-hard), and asked to write pseudo code + dry run. I was able and did dry run also. For another question, I was able to write pseudo code but for dry run, there was no enough time.

For LP, there were many questions on customer obsessiveness and solutions provided to them. Some questions were actually out of my reach as a software developer, as there were based on gaining customers’ trust and decisions that could be made on firm-level only.

Two coding questions asked were: 

1. Buy-Sell stocks to maximize profits with slight modifications added the by interviewer.
2. Find the maximum number which can be arranged from a given set of lists of numbers.

Difficulty level: High

Final Verdict: Reject. As per HR, in bar-raiser I was rated average on LP (customer obsessiveness specifically), so they made discussion of No-hire.

Takeaways for someone who’s applying to amazon:
Most of the coding questions are DP, greedy, and BST based. Most commonly asked LLD and HLD questions also. Honestly, I don’t think they’re hard to crack. Make sure you prepare the short & concise answers for LP questions and do a dry run for them with someone. Help to remove redundant information from your answer, and will save you time for your next coding questions. For me, it was the behavioral asked in bar-raiser which made the hiring team change their verdict, which clearly implies that there is lots of weightage on LP and Bar-raiser both.

Also, I’m kind of relived that i didn’t make to amazon. It was the first company i gave interviews to for sde2 and didn’t want to settle too soon. I had different targets, so i had good dry runs for my prep as amazon interviews. Plus the work culture id said to be toxic for teams i was being interviewed for( got a gist of it while interview also), which may be good for a fresher but I was not looking for any such lucrative offer which would cost me my weekends later on. In case you have any specific questions, drop comments. i’ll be happy to answer.