Status: New grad, MS CS
Work Experience: 1 year 9 months (Non internship experience), 8 months of internship
Position: SDE1 at Amazon (Interviewed for SDE2)
Location: Seattle, WA
Date: 16 April 2020
Interview Experience:
Received the OA on 7 March 2020.
Took the OA on 14 March 2020
Online Assessment:
OA consisted of two questions:
- https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question/436073/
- https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question/542597/
OA also consisted of survey questions.
Got the call from the recruiter on 17 March 2020 to schedule phone screen. I was told that I will be interviewing for SDE2 position even though I lacked 3 months of work experience that they were expecting.
Phone Screen:
30 minutes of LP questions.
One String problem, similar to https://leetcode.com/problems/word-break/
The interviewer was extremely friendly and I was able to give the correct solution in 25 minutes. 5 minutes for Q&A.
Got call from the recruiter on 27th March informing that I cleared the phone screen. Since the final rounds were about to happen online, I had a chance to talk to one team member about how the interviews will happen. I scheduled my final interviews on 16th April.
Due to NDA, I will share limited information
Round 1: Design Interview
30 minutes of LP and one unseen design problem. I found it quite hard, but I kept talking as much as possible and didn't have any awkward silence. Not sure how impressed the interviewer was, but I don't think I messed up the question. It was mostly about migrating an old system to a new system without any downtime.
Round 2: Hiring Manager
60 minutes of open discussion. Felt really good by the end of this round. Eased out a lot of pressure. The manager seemed extremely casual and made me feel as if I was a part of the team already.
Round 3: Technical Interview
30 minutes of LP. One array question similar to 3Sum, which I was able to solve. The question's format was not how the questions are on LC. I had to figure out how the inputs will be and what kind of output to return.
One hour lunch break after three rounds of interviews.
Round 4: Technical Interview
25 minutes of LP. One hashmap/priority queue question for which I couldn't find a similar question on LC. I was able to give the optimal solution.
Round 5: Bar Raiser
30 minutes of LP and one graph question which I solved using BFS. Discussed a lot about coding standards. Think I did this round really well.
Post Interview Experience
I was informed on 22nd April that I did well on all the rounds but I don't have the relevant work experience to get hired as SDE2 but they're willing to offer me SDE1.
Interview Preparation
The interviews happened at a tough time. I already had a full time offer from an EdTech company but due to COVID my offer got rescinded. I was informed about this just after my phone screen. I had to put in a lot of efforts in the three weeks time and I mostly solved a lot of Amazon questions from Leetcode.
I believe that LP is extremely important for Amazon. I spent three days for figuring out stories. I wrote them all down in detail and practiced in front of my roommates. If not for this preparation, I don't think I would have answered so many LP questions. I followed Dan Croiter's videos on YouTube to structure my answers.
I am extremely thankful to LC community, without which nothing would have been possible.