Hey all, I just received an offer from Amazon for a SDE 2 position at their Seattle location.

Background:

1. MS CS at a US uni
2. 2 YoE as a lead software engineer at an early stage startup (so had good amount of design, developer and PM experience)
3. Before that, worked on Android app dev and entrepreneurship in medicare industry for ~6 months
4. Before that, explored Social sciences for ~2 years
5. Before that, BTech in CS

Timeline/Details:

1. Applied through a referral in late Jan
2. Online Assessment on Feb 6th
   1. Don't remember the questions.
   2. One was sort/heap related, another was intervals (I think). Both LC medium.
3. 1st Phone screen scheduled on March 1st (but cancelled due to a scheduling error by the recruiter)
   1. This was rescheduled for March 10th (3 questions, graph related, LC easy/medium)
   2. Notes: Do amazon-tagged LC questions
4. 2nd Phone screen on March 19th
   1. Question was linked list, with tough follow ups (LC medium/hard)
   2. Had to link multi-threading, read-write semaphores, immutable data structures
   3. Notes: Good to have deep knowledge in concepts ranging from OS to OOD to Algorithms to Data structures, and other CS fundamentals
5. Final onsite on April 30th
   1. Programming 1:
      1. Min cost in concatenating a list containing multiple strings - suggested sorting 1st, then min heap solution (with a hint)
      2. 2 behavioral questions, with follow ups
      3. Overall, went well
   2. Programming 2:
      1. Word break 2 - gave an optimised solution, but couldn't provide a satisfactory explanation of the logic
      2. 2 behavioral questions, with follow ups
      3. Overall, OK
   3. System Design
      1. Talked with the team lead himself. Felt intimidated at first, but got comfortable with it.
      2. Didn't ask to design a hypothetical system, but dug deep on my work at my previous startup (he was curious about the startup, our product, etc). I answered all of his questions, and he seem pleased (and so did I :))
      3. 2 behavioral questions, with follow ups
      4. Went very well
   4. OOD: Design a locker system (hard to explain in short, but LC easy/medium).
      1. 2 behavioral questions, with follow ups
      2. Went good as well
6. Offer on May 5th

Notes

1. Behavioral: prepare 2-3 responses (for each question) in the STAR format. The stories must have positive outcomes, which can be quantifiable, and structured according to their LPs. They take it very seriously, so prepare thoroughly. The more talking points you have, more stories you have to share, the better.
2. Programming: Amazon-tagged LC questions + important CS concepts from OS, OOD, etc.
3. System Design: hard to expect what exactly. For me, he was curious about my work, and dug deep into it. I answered any question he threw at me. But, I'd also prepared from SD prep websites.
4. General: With follow ups, be creative and try to think outside the box for your solutions. If you can think of all the edge cases and provide creative and feasible solutions to them, even better.
5. STAY CONFIDENT and SMILE

All the best.