Amazon | SDE2 | Bangalore | May [Offer]
Anonymous User
6369
Interview

Interview Experience: I have signed an NDA so i will try to give only as much as possible

I was contacted by a recruter on LinkedIn. After sharing the resume, the recuter shared a test link after 3 days.

Online Test:
2 questions, medium difficulty level.

  • Similar to get top K frequent words, similar to: https://leetcode.com/problems/word-frequency/
  • Split an array such that every element of each subarray lies only in that subarray and nowhere else (there are multiple duplicate elements).

After 2 days the recruter called and invited me to a virtual onsite interview. The interview was scheduled after a month. Total 5 rounds:

R1: Technical
I was nervous and this round did not go well. There were 2 Medium difficulty questions:

  • Question on Mono Queue/Stack: Easily solvable if you have fair understanding of monotonic sequences. Implementation was simple, but i did minor mistakes in nervousness. ADVICE: Don't get excited if you get the optimal solution in the first attempt.
  • Lowest common ancetor variant: It took some time for me to come up with optimal solution, interviewer gave a hint and was very friendly. I was able to code the solution 10 mins over time (Interviewer was supportive). ADVICE: Don't get dishartened if you cannot coome up with optimal solution, just try to solve for all corner cases and follow the interviewer leads.

R2: Technical

  • Medium diffficulty Question on Heap: I was able to come up with optimal solution quickly. Then the interviewer asked me to differenciate between BST approach/sorting/Heaps on time and space complexity. The catch here was that in BST and Sorting approach only for 1 corner case the complexity was O(N^2), but for heap all cases had O(NLogN)complexity. ADVICE: Make sure to thoroughly analyse all corner cases.
  • Difficult question on graph involving Topological sort and BFS: I was able to come up with a non brute force solution, and with interviewers guidance, i was able to get the optimal solution. ADVIECE: Make sure to pay attention on HINTS, they will surely help you in findind better solution.
  • Behavioral questions: Do prepare instances for your current job on the Amazon leadership principal questions (They take these questions very very seriously)

Break of 3 hours after first 2 rounds.

R3: Design

  • This round went well. The interviewer asked me to do low level API design, DB design, Low level Component Design, choise of NoSQL vs SQL related question, Cacheing and Load Balancing questions. Due to time constraints I could do first part of design completely and second part partially (The system had 2 parts imagine them as two different design questions).
  • 2-3 Leadership principle questions

R4: Manager round

  • This round was completely on LP (60 mins)
  • There were lot of questions on alternative approach, STAR-AR approach.

After first 4 round I was expecting to hear back from the HR :D
I did get a call but was disheartened to hear that i will have one more round. All sorts of bad though started flowing in through my mind. The next interview was after a week. I did a lot of LC and read about many OS concepts during the entire week.

R5: Bar raiser
I was extremely tensed and terrified as i was expecting elimination :(
There were 2 interviewers (one shadow) which made me even more tensed.

  • Difficult question on DP: with lot of help i was fortunately able to code it.
  • LP: lots of LP questions

Preparation TIPS:
First of all, thank you LC community, it would have impossible without you. LC rocks.

  • I would recommend finishin gall LC cards they are extemely useful. Also, the couse on coursera for advanced DS/Algos i a good start.
  • For system design, Grooking the coding interview is the best place to prepare. It worth spending money there. the content is extremly helpful
  • Do read graph algorithms & solve lot of problems.
  • Keep preparing for LP question everyday (Kraftshala has a lot of questions to check them out).
  • Do not use IDE, and try to remeber syntax, believe me it will come handy.

FAQ
Years of Experience - 5
Total time for preparation - ~2 months
Salary - https://leetcode.com/discuss/compensation/671601/Amazon-or-SDE2-or-Bangalore
HR Turnaround time after my phone interview - 2 days
turnaround time after the virtual osite interview - 5 days
turnaround time after bar raiser - 5 days until actual offer rollout.

I wish all of you all the best, hope i could have been of help. All the best. Keep believing in yourself. You can do it :)

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