Amazon Interview Experience (Off-Campus)

Hi Everyone,

As the title mentions, I belong to the tier 3 mechanical branch luckily joined Infosys last year. After joining I gained a lot of interest in CS. I started by picking Java as my language and mastering it, starting with basic DSA. Around 2 months passed and done about 200 practice problems on basic and medium DSA. Applied to Amazon around 8 times till then but was shortlisted only once.

Round 1 : 

Online Assessment included 2 Questions, one was array(variation of Array rotation using unit space and linear time) and the second was LinkedList-based ( cyclic LL variation). 90 mins were allotted for the same

About 4 days later received a mail for the next round.

Round 2:

The interview went around 35 – 40 mins, and the interviewer asked questions based on DSA.

The first one was a classic DP coin problem which I solved from recursive, memorization, and then iterative approach.

The second one he asked was matrix traversal (land and water variation). I solved using BST but he didn’t seem satisfied with the result and wanted me to optimize it. He gave me some hints and finally landed on a solution as well but I was not well prepared for BST and DFS. 

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting a next round but about a week later received a mailer about the next round.

Round 3 :

I was asked again asked about DSA but this time only pseudocode and then shifted to Low-Level Design. The interviewer asked me about a design for a snake and ladder game. As I was plain blank about LLD ( I only knew SOLID, DRY principles). I could design as expected and the meeting ended in about 30 mins.

About 3 days, received a rejection mailer.

Learning Outcomes:

• Practice is never enough. Keep grinding till you land somewhere.
• Never fake the answer. They don’t expect you to know everything.
• The first step in designing is clarifying client requirements.
• System Design is important
• It’s a good practice to give interviews even if you are not fully prepared, as it marks the areas of improvement.