Status: New Grad, 2 YOE (intern and work)
Position: SDE I
Date: Feb 29, 2020
Interview Process:
- Amazon Online Assessment
- Onsite Interview ( 4 Rounds )
- Date: April 29
Online Technical Assessment challenge:
3 medium questions for 90 mins. 1 is exactly in Leetcode.
I got the right approach but did not pass all the test cases. (1 with 17/30 and 1 with 23/30). I thought I failed it but somehow they gave me another surprise to move me forward.
Virtual on-site Interview process:
Very similar to this post for Behavioral: https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question/605194/Amazon-or-On-site-or-Seattle-or-Feb-29-2020-(Rejected)
For behavioral, I prepared ~14 stories because I thought it would need 2 per normal interviews and 5 for the full LP one. I only have 1 year in industry, it is hard for me to get stories. Turn out I am so wrong. Either my stories were very well prepared (all stories are less than 1:30 min) or very boring that they only asked 2-3 follow up questions. Therefore, I used 4-5 stories for each round. The second interviewer told me that I could re-use stories. Lmao, maybe cus of that, I over reused my stories. Some stories I used in 3 rounds. I think I f*cked here. I feel no hope after doing behavioral.
For technical, I focused on fundamental algorithms and concepts. Only done ~50 medium questions on LC. Later on, I only practiced mock interviews in ***pt.com, in which my real interview questions are very similar level. I highly recommended doing so if you are close to the interview date.
Round 1: 25 min behavioral, 25 min technical, 10 min intro and question
- The interviewer was very nice. The first interview so I did not reuse the story.
- Technical: it was not an algorithm question but I did not even know that until the last minute. I was so naive to just solve the problem straightforward cus I thought it was algorithm questions. Did not pay attention to code splitting or scalability. Although I could answer all the questions, I think I messed up because I did not write the code as clean as the production code.
When you heard the question that is not very well stated. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION AND THINK IT AS OOD QUESTION.
I mean you should mention code-splitting and scalability while discussing the problem.
Round 2: same schedule
- 2 interviewers. One shadow developer, one developer. He told me to recycle the stories if I want to, so I used most of the story in the first interview.
- Technical: medium LC problem. solve with hashmap. Nailed it with no problem except forgetting to check edge case when going through pseudocode.
--> I loved to work with this guy. He is my motivation for me to find a way to Amazon. He was a nice, sociable, and smart developer.
Round 3: full LP with the hiring manager. Feel like I fked very hard cus the manager didn't look interested at me except when I asked him the questions.
--> I felt no hope at this point. LMAO
Round 4: same as 1st and 2nd round.
- 2 interviewers. One shadow hiring manager. 1 is a bar raiser.
- The bar raiser is a very very nice and talkative guy. I communicated very well with him. He asked very profound follow up questions. This is where I felt unlucky. I decided to use a real story because other interviewers did not ask too much in-depth. I could answer most of the questions but some details I could not remember anymore -> this is a big red flag for me I guess.
- Technical: 1 more LC medium. I think that I solved it perfectly.
Overall, I have an extremely amazing experience with this interview. This is my first one with FANG so I was nervous. I felt quite sad that I should prepare behavioral a lot better. I think I showed all my passion and my culture fit in stories, but just too few stories. The technical questions were not hard, so if you have upcoming interviews, please focus on LP as well. Big shout out to the LC community to help me a lot. Especially @vivek_kr_pathak.
The recruiter sent me an email told me to wait 2-5 days for the result. How long should I expect to wait for the result? I saw most of ppl got an offer right after the interview, so I assumed I got rejected. I felt dead inside atm.
Thank for reading. Hope it is informative.
P/S: forget to mention. Put your cups of water and coffee away from you. I accidentally dropt my coffee to my laptop during lunch break. :'(