Status: 4 years software development experience as a consultant.
Position: SDE1 at Amazon
Location: Virginia
Date: September, 2020

• The interview is the standard procedure of 1 online round, 1 phone interview with the HM and 5 rounds on virtual onsite. The process took around 2 months (from initial round to offer) as I have opted for a 3 week period between phone and onsite rounds. The interviewers were great and challenged my logic and problem solving abilities. The coding rounds were more like solving a problem with your college buddy or colleague, no pressure at all. They were patient enough to listen to my answers on the behavioral questions and asked excellent follow-up questions.
• That being said, the main reason of me writing this experience is written below. I understand it's a lengthy read, sorry!
• Never did I think I would be writing an interview experience post on Leetcode with an offer from a Tier 1 company. The reason being, I have never appeared infront of any of the big companies, be it because of low confidence or laziness or lack of interview calls.
• The whole purpose of me writing this interview experience post is to share with my fellow leetcoders and job aspirants that cracking the coding interview is not that daunting as it looks from far.
• I had felt the same way looking at the interview experiences of candidates solving 100, 200 and even 300 problems (which is not a bad thing) on leetcode before their interviews. These numbers scared me too!
• But this year I decided give it a serious try, left all my inhibitions & insecurities and went to crack these interviews. The approach I followed is quality before quantity. I took leetcode premium and looked at the compiled list of topics for each company. Then I went to different sources like Cracking the coding interview, Medium (website), CS50, etc., and studied the topics thoroughly and actually understood how to use them in any situation.
• This approach has helped me alot! It is mainly because of the logic " There are finite number of topics but infinte number of questions and if you master a topic you can answer 100s and 1000s of question asked upon it. "
• My leetcode stats:
• In addition to the coding problems, please go through system design problems and think how you would solve a particular problem on the high level from architectural standpoint. Think about the trade-offs of choosing one approach to the other. At the end of the day, remember that "No deisgn is a perfect design" .
• Finally, I would like to say please don't underestimate yourself, master the concepts and you can crack any coding interview.