I was contacted by a recruiter from amazon.
YOE: 2 years 2 months (Tier - 3 startup).
Education: Tier - 3
LC: 220+ (~100 mediums, ~25 hards, ~75 easy)
Online Assessment:(Hackerrank)
- Movies on flight. (Failed only one test case)
- Items in containers. (AC)
Got 2 weeks of time till my phone screen.
Phone Screen:(60 mins)
Basic intro about my work-ex. This went for 10 mins.
1. Merge sort a Linked List.
I was asked to write a production level code for this one. I was asked to give a detailed approach and then I was asked to write the code. And I did it. This part took 25 mins.
2. Zigzag level order traversal in a binary tree.
I gave the BFS approach where we can keep track of the level and do the zigzag traveral. He was okay with it. But the interviewer wanted me to give him an approach where I've to use both stack and queue data structures. Also I'm not allowed to keep track of the level. He gave me a vague hint. Basically he didn't want me to go with BFS/DFS. And I gave him an approach but I didn't test it coz we ran out of time. But I knew I screwed it up.
No LP questions were asked.
Verdict: Rejected (Duh)
No feedback was given but I knew where I screwed up.
Personal thought:
- Its kinda dissapointing to get rejected for not having an idea about one particular approach. Maybe that's the challenge to get through the phone screen.
- If the problem is too easy, always try to come up with approaches which are different despite of its performance and other complexities.
But other than that, the recruiter was friendly and helpful through out the process. The interviewer was also friendly.
Ciao