AMAZON | SDE 1 | March 2020 [Virtual Onsite] - REJECT
Anonymous User
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Some datapoints/info:
Y.O.E < 1 yr
Team: AWS
Location: Seattle
Position: SDE 1 [NOT New grad]
Date of Interview: March 16, 2020

So, here's my timeline of my interview experience:-
Wrote an cold email to the recruiter showing my interest in AWS around early Februrary. Got a reply-back roughly about 1-2 days after that they have something for me :). After two weeks, got the chance to talk with the recruiter for intial HR screen. Same day, they decided to move forward with my application. Got the OA within roughly two days.

Online Assesment questions[Question wording was different]:
OA 1:

  1. Amazon Fulfillment Center same as Min Cost to Connect Ropes

  2. Amazon PrimeAir same as Optimal Utilization

followed by explaination and analysis section.

OA2:
Behaviourial questions

Within next few days, got the invite for the Onsite from the recruiter which was later converted to Virtual Onsite due to COVID-19.

Here's what was asked during the virtual interview:

Round 1:- [15 mins LP & 35 mins Coding question]
I had a rough start. Intially, I did expectionally well on answering the LPs. Then, the coding question came I wasn't able to think off a suitable solution. And the interviewer was attacking on me whenever I was devising a solution. Weird and very rude interviewer!! Probably the worst interviewer I have ever encountered.
Coding question:

Given the start time and the end of *N* threads, output the maximum number of threads that were active.
**Input:**
            Thread 1  start_time: 2:00 end_time: 4:00
            Thread 2  start_time: 3:00 end_time: 5:00
			Thread 3  start_time: 1:00 end_time: 4:00
			Thread 4  start_time: 5:00 end_time: 7:00
			
**Output**: 3
Explaination:- Thread 1, 2, 3, all were active during 3:00 - 4:00

Round 2:- [30mins LP & 30 min OOD question]
After getting a great traumatic experience from 1st round, I managed to cope up. This round was probably the bar-raiser round. There were two people and one asked LPs questions for about 30 mins and other one asked OOD question. This round went well for me.

OOD question: Design phone bill calculater

I was asked to write calcBill() function and define the associated object classes.

Round 3:- [20 min LP & 45 min coding question]
This round also went pretty well. The round started with LP questions followed by a coding question:
[K maximum sum combinations from two arrays] - GeeksfGeeks question

Input :  A[] : {3, 2} 
         B[] : {1, 4}
         K : 2 [Number of maximum sum
               combinations to be printed]
Output : 7    // (A : 3) + (B : 4)
         6    // (A : 2) + (B : 4)

Input :  A[] : {4, 2, 5, 1}
         B[] : {8, 0, 3, 5}
         K : 3
Output : 13   // (A : 5) + (B : 8)
         12   // (A : 4) + (B :  8)
         10   // (A : 2) + (B : 8) 

I struggled a little bit but with help of hints managed to solve this question by the end.

Round 4:- [35 min LP only]
This was probably the best round. He was hiring manager of the team and was very nice. He asked few LP based questions and talked about his experience at AWS.

Some of Leadership Questions(LPs) that were asked during the all four rounds:

  1. Tell me about a time when you went out of your comfort zone.
  2. Tell me about a time when you gave a simple solution to a complex problem.
  3. Tell me about a time when you disagreed with your manager/team member.
  4. Tell me about a time when you have innovated something.
  5. Tell me about a time when you solved a complex problem.
  6. Tell me about a time when you missed a deadline.
  7. Tell me about a time when you received a negative feedback.
  8. Tell me about a time when you took a quick decision based on the datapoints.

There were follow-ups questions related to each answer.

Unfortunately I wasn't selected due to lack of experience + lacking technical skills but I just wanted to share my experience with you all.

My advise please prepare LPs well. Prepare 4-5 examples for different LP questions. And think thoroughly while solving a coding problem.

I HOPE IT HELPS!!!!

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