Background Details :

YOE - 1
Position: SDE1 at Amazon
Location: India

I am going to share my interview experience with Amazon. It's not majorly focused on questions asked, but I am writing my overall experience and learnings from it.

I cannot share the exact questions due to Non Disclosure Agreement.
But Here is the summary of Interview Rounds

Round 1)
Online Assessment
2 Easy Medium Level Questions

Round 2)
Technical Interview
2 Medium Level Questions

Round 3)
Technical Interview
2 Question - 1 Easy and 1 Hard

Round 4)
Hiring Manager Round
1 Medium Coding Question and Some Discussion on Project/Resume

Round 5)
Bar Raiser Round
2 Coding Questions - Both Medium Level

Now Coming to Important Part

How Not to Suck at Interviews

1).During One of Technical Interview, Interviewer asked me one Easy and One Hard Question. I solved and explained easy question in 10 Minutes. For Hard question, I gave him approach and also wrote the code. The Interviewer was expecting a different solution. So, he asked him to explain my code in detail. We were having plenty of time since I had written code for both questions within 30 Minutes. I dry run my code on various test cases. He wanted to understand my approach hence he kept on giving me test cases to dry run on. Almost all of remaining time went in dry run and explaining him. In the last 5 Minutes, Interviewer gave me some test case where I found my solution was giving Wrong Answer. I updated code quickly but still had few issues. Later on I found that the question was available on Leetcode and he directly submitted my code and gave me the test case where my Leetcode submission was giving WA. When I updated the code, he again submitted on Leetcode and gave me test case where it was giving WA.
I felt very helpless. If he had to check my code on Leetcode, he could have submitted when 30 Minutes were remaining in interview. I could have spent those 25 Minutes in updating the logic instead of wasting in explaining him. But For almost 25 Minutes, he only asked me to dry run and slowly explain each step value. And in the end, he gave me the one text case. It feels bad because when you know you could have solved the problem, but Interviewer wanted to just timepass with you.

Learning from this Interview Round:
Interview pattern has changed. Nowadays, interviewer don't care much about logic or alternative approach. They just look at some leetcode question and want the same approach as written in Editorial. Also, traditional process of Solving problems by explaining logic doesn't work because instead of giving test case to understand your code, the interviewers will directly submit your code on Leetcode to check if its working. You should not spend more time in dry running and explaining the code.

2).During Bar Raiser Round, the interviewer kept on asking me for more optimized version of code. I have already given him code with constant time but he still was asking for more time and space optimized approach. I was very stressed at that time. I thought of all possible solutions but my code was the only best solution I could found. The Interviewer was still asking and then I could not solve it. He just made me say that "I am not able to solve this". After not being able to optimize for 20 Minutes, I just gave up and told him that I am not able to solve. I felt very bad because it was Easy Medium Level Question and I had previously solved it but didn't know any optimized solution existed.
But... After the interview, I searched for optimized solution and I saw that there is no optimization possible. The solution I gave was "The Most" optimized solution. I then realized that it was not just normal interview. It was a Stress Interview. That's why he kept me asking me more optimized every time so that I could get frustrated at some point( which sadly I did ). Even he knew that we can't reduce it from constant space complexity. He was just stressing me out. That's why he made me say "I am not able to solve this". This was first stress interview I gave in my life.

Learning from this Interview Round:
Be ready for such scenarios. Interviewer will make you feel Stressed. He will make you doubt your skills/solution/approach. Don't fall prey to it. Don't be part of his game. Be firm on your skills. If I could have told him firmly that there is no optimized solution possible instead of wasting 20 Minutes, then he might have to take a step back and accept the fact that I have written the optimized approach.

So obviously, the Final Result was Rejected.

I just felt that it was very new type of experience for me. Hence, I thought of sharing it with community so that someone will get benefit if they came across such scenarios.