There are far too many posts describing how the normal drill is for an Amazon SDE New Grad. But I'll still share the overall experience.

First Round - 7 Debugging Questions. I got all 7/7.

Second Round - 2 Coding Questions. I solved one entirely, and I'm pretty sure the solution was optimal. For second question, my solution passed some test cases but not all.

Third round - 3 hour simulation on how a normal day for an amazon SDE looks like. Fairly straightforward, no tricks there. (Keep the Leadership principles in mind while answering).

These 3 round were done in November 2019.

I had read posts saying that you have to wait for roughly a month before they schedule a final round of interviews (that is if you cleared all the 3 previous ones), because they are interviewing a lot of people.

I had plans for travelling back to India (my home country), in December end and to return back on January 30th. I was hoping that my final round of interviews would be done before I leave so that I could enjoy my vacation. (If only things went as planned. (sigh...))

2 days after I landed, I get an e-mail from amazon saying they'd like to schedule a final round of interviews (3 interviews with different SDE's at amazon). Honestly, one of my bags had yet to be unpacked.

I e-mailed them, explaining the situation, and requesting that the interviews be conducted once I get back, in first week of February. But I got a reply back saying that January 24th is the deadline, and they want to fill the position, so they can withdraw my application temporarily but no guarantees that the interview will be conducted in first week of Feb. (Not their fault, can't blame them) I agreed to one of the time slots and began my preparation. (The time slot being (2 AM - 5 AM), considering they'd be interviewing according to Pacific Time) Again, not their fault.

I had roughly 9 days to prepare. I had met my family after a year and a half but this was something I had worked really hard for and my family was considerate so, there starts the preparation. Did a lot of leetcoding, watched youtube videos on Amazon's leadership principles, read posts (like these). Finally the day of the interview. (I mean, the night)

I was setting up the environment and making sure everything is perfect, when I found out that the upload speed provided by my internet carrier was not meeting the criteria for Amazon Chime. I still had an hour, so I thought I could go to a cyber cafe (but damn, it's 1 AM). Left with no other choice, I did what I could do best at the time. (Pray)

First Interviewer joined, and immediately felt that there were connection issues and voice was lagging, but I explained my situation and he was cooperative. I had to repeat some stuff because he kept on saying there was some mechanical noise coming along side my voice. Anyways, it went well, I answered the leadership principle question fairly good and nailed the coding question as well.

(It's 3AM now)

Same with second interviewer, except that I did okayish on LP, and also okayish on coding question. I had a solution but couldn't optimize it.

(it's 4AM now)

I bombed the final one, both LP and coding question. Not because I was sleepy, no, I was fully focused, but the coding question was something I hadn't encountered before and I got a little nervous. The interviewer gave me a couple of hints but I wasn't able to come up with a solution and in no time I heard her saying "Ok, the time is over, It was nice talking to you. Do you have any questions for me?". And in my reponse I couldn't help but yawn. (true story). I apologized and made some random question.

Result - No Offer. I didn't expect one.

Moral - I could blame the circumstances, but I know it was my lack of preparation that couldn't land me an offer. I was happy with myself, (at least I did leetcode while on vacation, otherwise I wouldn't have).

I read the rejection e-mail twice, I don't know why, right before my mom called for lunch. It was my favourite dish.

I know this post is not helping those of you who are in the middle of their interviews, but it might help those, who, like me, didn't get an offer. I understand it's a dream for many, but all I'd like to say is, "GO prepared the next time. So prepared that even before the interview, you know that the job is yours, and you are just there to make it official."

Cheers!

PS :- I got an offer from Amazon and I started on 26th April 2021 :P