Experience : 8+ Years
Position : SDE2 at Amazon
Location : Bangaluru
Date : Mar 2021

—Since I signed NDA so would not be able to disclose actual questions—

Application Process :
I was approached by the recruiter over LinkedIn. After I replied positively, she took ahead the process and I received an OA test link.

Online Assessment(Hackerrank) :
OA consisted of 2 coding questions. Both the questions were of LC medium difficulty. There were some subjective questions with each problem where you need to elaborate on your approach, runtime complexity etc.

Virtual Onsite :
After 3 days , I received invitation for virtual onsite.

1. Round 1(Coding + LP) : Started with general introduction followed up by LP. It lasted for about 15 minutes. I was asked two coding problems in this round. First one was of LC easy-medium difficulty based on array. I struggled a little initially but was able to solve it eventually. I was able to modify my initial approach to give optimal solution. It took around 35 minutes. Interviewer mentioned that we were running out of time and she would just like to know the approach for the second problem. It was again LC easy-medium difficulty problem related to parentheses. I was able to tell and code an optimal solution in about 6 minutes. I think these last few minutes worked in my favour . She seemed happy with my approach and overall solutions.

2. Round 2 (Coding + LP) : This round also started with introduction and LP. It went on for about 15-18 minutes. It was followed up by two coding questions. First one was LC easy-medium difficulty (kind of variation of 2-sum problem). I narrated my approach and then quickly coded it up. I saved some time in this question which helped me in the next question. 2nd question was of medium-hard LC difficulty. It was based on binary tree.I was able to provide an optimal solution based on DFS to which he seemed okay with. The interviewer was helpful and he did extend some help when I got stuck while coding the solution.

3. Round 3 : System Design (HLD) + LP - The interviewer started off with some LP related questions. I had some really good stories pertaining to asked LPs. I was able to narrate them really well (I could sense it from the way interviewer was paying attention to every detail) and he was very impressed with the instances that I had described. LP discussion took most of the time of this round and we were left with about 15 minutes. He asked one system design problem. It was similar to designing twitter like micro-blogging site. I covered most of the critical aspect of the problem. He seemed happy with the overall design. All in all, this round went really good from what I could tell.

4. Round 4 : System Design (HLD + LLD) + LP - There were 2 interviewers for this round. Both seemed nice and friendly with the way they introduced themselves. I was asked some questions covering LPs. Here also I was able to give a convincing story. Post LP discussion we moved to system design problem. It was related to adding some features on a highly popular app. I had to keep in mind the distributed nature of the App. I was able to design a decent solution. Although I did not do particularly good on the LLD part specially because I assumed a lot of things without highlighting them. Overall they seemed satisfied with the approach and design.

I heard back from the recruiter after 4 days and she said that they are going to make an offer.

Takeways : Couple of things I would like to mention here which may benefit LC community :

1. Whenever you get intimidated with a problem (no matter easy, medium or hard), just try to come up with a brute force solution. Trust me once you have a brute-force solution, coming up with an optimal solution will be a whole lot easier. I know this is easier said than done but you can practice this approach on LC. This will pay you big time, trust me on this one (helped me in the first round).

2. In your design rounds (or in any round in general ) do not assume anything without letting your interviewer know irrespective howsoever small the assumptions may be. Always mention your assumptions to the interviewer know because that way they are aware that you are knowingly doing/not-doing something .I did this mistake in my last round and it could have costed me the offer because the interviewers had to highlight couple of things which I had assumed without discussing.

3. Specific to Amazon - this has been mentioned in almost every post related to amazon and I would mention it again - take LPs very seriously because they constitute almost half of your interactions with the interviewers.

Compensation : https://leetcode.com/discuss/compensation/1110387/Amazon-SDE-2-or-Bangalore
All the best!!