Status: Current grad, MS CS Top 60 CS school
Position: SDE Intern at Amazon
Location: Boston, MA
Date: 29th March 2022 (final round)
Programming Round
I don't remember the questions but I wasn't able to run the test cases for one of the question due to time limit exceeded error and one other question could only pass 6 test cases. Overall, it was not a good round but unexpectedly I moved forward to the next round.
Workstyle Assesment and Simulation (2 hrs)
This round had two parts in it. First one was a simulation of a day in an Amazon Intern's life with multiple choice questions. And second part was just personal behavioral questions which I don't think had a right or wrong answer.
Final Internview (45 min)
Interviewer was polite and friendly. He directly started off with the behavioral questions as there was only 45 min. I was able to answer both the questions quickly and he replied good for both after my answer.
Behavioral Questions:
- Tell me about a time when you almost missed a deadline.
- Tell me about a time when you had to decide between compromise on the quality of work or extend the work deadline.
Programming questions:
- https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-largest-element-in-a-stream/
- https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-smallest-element-in-a-bst/solution/
I couldn't directly solve the first question. I started off with a brute force approach but the interviewer helped me through the question. He was mainly seeing if I knew how to use different logic and my knowledge on data structures. I already knew second question so I was able to do it quickly with good explanation. He asked me the time and space complexity for both at the end which I was able to correctly. The interview extended for 10 min extra.
Leetcode medium and easy Amazon questions seems good enough for this interview. I honestly just started leetcode 1 week before the final interview round but do that only if you have good background in CS before hand. Also properly prepare frequently asked behavioral questions on the Amazon leadership principles using the STAR (situation, task, action, result) format only.
Result
So finally, you might be confused about the title I gave this. This whole process I did was for the position SDE Intern Summer 2022. After the final round I got a rejection email in 2 days saying that they are unable to offer me a position at the time and if additional positions become available in future they would love to reach out to me. But I did not think anything of this because all the companys send a mail similar to this when rejecting. In a couple of weeks I applied for the SDE Intern Fall 2022 position to give it another try but I did not really have any hope left that time. But on 29th April 2022, I directly got an acceptance email from Amazon without any interview for Fall 2022. So basically they considered this interview only but I am not sure how I got accepted for it but that's what happened and hence the title.
Ps, If you have any questions please feel free to ask. I will try to answer as soon as possible.