Status: 9 YOE
Position: Senior TSA at a BANK
Location: Toronto, Canada
Date: Mar, 2020

I've read many interview experiences on this site, it's lead to effectively preparing for my interviews so it's my turn to give back.

Tools that helped me succeed:
Leetcode premium - worth it, I started with out premium at first but then purchased premium 2 weeks before my interview date. Solved ~150 question on Leetcode.
Youtube - System Design Videos by Gaurav Sen. This along with Grooking the system design interview was what passed my system deisgn at Amazon
Questions to ask after your interview - this makes you seem smart and care about the work to build additional trust with your interviewer
https://github.com/viraptor/reverse-interview/blob/master/README.md

The Entry
A recruiter found me on LinkedIn so I chatted with him over LinkedIn. I was on my vacation so could not speak to him over phone, but he scheduled me for an OA.

OA
Standard two hour online assessment, two questions and self evaluation.

https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question/411357/ all test cases passed
https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question/542597/ (Top N Competitors/Buzzwords) - Not all test cases passed.
The recruiter contacted me right after saying I did well and scheduled me for a onsite for 4 weeks later.

How I used the 4 weeks after I cleared my OA was the differentiator. Due to current COVID-19 situation, I would work from home 9 to 5, and would practice on Leet Code from 6 PM to 1 AM every day. And over the weekends would start at 8 AM and will continue till 12 AM. My wife was very supportive during this period, and I am thankful to her that I got an offer. This is how I utilized the 4 weeks:
2 Weeks - Practicing question on Leet Code & Hacker Rank.
1 Week - Reading the Book Grooking the System Desing Interview and Watching System Design Videos by Gurav Sen.
4 Week - Behavioral question. Go through all Amazon Principles and had written down at least 2 answers for all the questions.
Last 2 days - Revisit all the questions that I had solved on Leet Code

On site
Due to the current COVID-19 situation, the interview was virtual. I had a very enjoyable time interviewing with Amazon, except for the fact that you had to start at webcam for 4 hours continiously. As soon as I started my interviews, I think I just let my personality do the talking. As a reflection, the interviewers have two phases, LP and technical. All four interviewers started with LP questions that lasted for about 20 minutes, followed by System Design/Coding question.

The first interviewer started off asking LP for 15 minutes. Followed by System Design question. I jumped straight into solving the system design question which was a mistake. Always remember to ask question to understand the size of the system you are dealing with. I made this mistake and was very nervous that this round would lead to a rejection. The interviewer dug into all concepts on System Design like caching, load balancing, live streaming, Poll was push, Sharding, master slave architecture, latency and how to monitor and track logs. I had spent quite a time understanding each of the concepts and was able to answer all question and was also able to discuss about the issues that might come up and alternative solutions for the same.

The second interview, had 2 interviewers and one of them was shadowing. Started off with 15-20 minutes of LP questions followed by hard leetcode coding question. The question is implementation of TRIE with Recurssion. I was able to come up with a solution, but before I could write it completely I ran out of time. But the interviewer seemed happy with my approach and solution.

The third interview, again had 2 interviewers and one of them was shadowing. Started off with 15-20 minutes of LP questions followed by coding question. It was a hard leet code question (recurssion, strings and memoization related), but the interviewer was really helpful. Was providing tips and guiding me as I was writing the solution. Was able to solve the problem and was able to explain time and space compexity. Was asked to provide alternate solutions, and we discussed about it. Did not had to code but had to explain the alternate solution.

The last interview was the difficult of all. Started off with 20 minutes of LP question followed by coding question. It was a medium leetcode question (using stack). I came up with a solution in linear time, but the interviewer had a different solution in mind and was expecting me to come up with the same. He was providing me hints, but I stuck to my solution and explained why my solution is better. But I did solve the question in the way the interviewer was expecting and provided walkthrough of both the solutions.

Aftermath
I received a call 2 days later and was updated that they are proceeding with an offer. I am yet to receive the offer and stuff, but happy that hardwork paid off :)

Wish everyone best of luck interviewing!

Compensation Details: https://leetcode.com/discuss/compensation/589539/Amazon-or-SDE-2-or-Toronto