Hi everyone,

I wanted to share my interview experience for the SDE 1 Fresher Role at Amazon.

Internship Experience: 7 months

Application and Online Assessment (OA)

• Applied on: 26th December 2024
• Received Hiring Interest Form: 28th December 2024
• Received OA Mail: 2nd January 2025 (with a 3-day deadline)

OA Details:

• Two DSA Questions (70 mins):
  • First Question: Amazon Prime Games is designing a game. The player needs to pass n rounds sequentially. The rules of play are as follows:
    The player loses power[i] health to complete round i.
    The player's health must be greater than 0 at all times.
    The player can choose to use armor in any one round. The armor will prevent damage of min(armor, power[i]).
    Determine the minimum starting health for a player to win the game.
  • Second Question: Implement LinkedList operations: push_front, push_back, and pop_front.
• Work Style Assessment: Focused on Amazon’s Leadership Principles (LPs).

The questions were Easy to Medium level, and I attempted both.

Interview Rounds

Round 1: DSA Only (16th January 2025)

After clearing the OA, I received a call from HR on 8th January for a basic qualification check. She scheduled my first interview on 16th January.
This round was conducted by an SDE 2 from the SageMaker team.

Interview Flow:

• The interviewer introduced himself and asked me to do the same.
• He mentioned there would be two DSA questions, which I had to solve optimally.

DSA Questions:

1. First Question: https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-path-sum/description/

   • Discussed the Dynamic Programming approach.
   • Explained the dry run to validate my logic.
   • Coded the solution and explained Time and Space Complexity.
   • The interviewer was satisfied.

2. Second Question: https://leetcode.com/problems/generate-parentheses/description/

   • First discussed the naive approach, then improved it using Backtracking.
   • Did a dry run before coding.
   • Explained Time and Space Complexity after coding.

At the end, the interviewer asked if I had any questions.

Result: Passed ✅

I received a call from HR on 22nd January, and she scheduled my Round 2 for 23rd January.

Round 2: Machine Coding + LP (23rd January 2025)

This round was taken by another SDE 2 from the SageMaker team.

Interview Flow:

• The interviewer introduced herself and asked me to introduce myself.
• She then asked me to design a Chess Game.

I wasn’t prepared for Machine Coding, as I hadn’t expected it for an SDE 1 fresher role.
I mentioned my concern, and the interviewer reassured me, explaining how a Machine Coding round is conducted.
She then changed the problem to designing a Snake and Ladder Game.

• I started by defining classes and functionalities.
• After writing the code, we discussed corner cases, and I implemented the required changes.

I learned a lot from this round, as the interviewer guided me through structuring my code efficiently.

Leadership Principles Questions:

1. Describe a situation where you showed ownership.
2. Describe a situation where you had to deliver a task under a tight deadline. What challenges did you face, and how did you resolve them?

I answered both based on my internship experiences.

Result: Passed ✅

I was nervous about whether I would proceed further, but I received a call from HR the very next day (24th January) confirming my final round (Bar Raiser) on 27th January.
However, it was rescheduled to 31st January.

Round 3: Bar Raiser (31st January 2025)

This round was conducted by a Senior SDM (Software Development Manager).

Interview Flow:

• The interviewer outlined the interview structure.
• The round focused heavily on Leadership Principles (LPs).

Leadership Principles Questions:

1. Tell me about a situation where you were assigned a critical task. Why was it critical, and how did you solve the challenges faced?
2. Describe a time when you had to do a task from complete scratch. What approach did you take, and how did you accomplish it?
3. How do you handle deadlines? Have you ever missed one? If so, how did you manage the situation?

The interviewer went deep into my answers, asking multiple follow-up questions.
I fumbled in two to three places, as he kept probing into details. By the end, I felt exhausted.
Finally, he asked if I had any questions for him.

Final Status: Selected 🎉

Received a mail from the recruiter three days later and was offered the role.

Hope this helps others preparing for Amazon’s SDE 1 role!