Years of Experience - 3 years 7 months
Position - SDE 2 at Amazon, India

Difficulty level: Hard.
I rate Amazon interviews as hard as the syllabus to cover is really vast. You have to be perfect in coding, LLD, HLD and Leadership principles.

Screening Round
Coding questions - I do not remember the exact questions but there was a simple String question (Passed all test cases) and one hard DP question (Passed all test cases).

LLD/HLD/Leadership principles - Since I applied for SDE2, I was also also assesed based upon HLD/LLD and leadership principle questions. There were certain use cases given. All these questions were MCQs. This round went well.

Cleared Screening
Having cleared the screening round, I asked for one month time as I had to give KT sessions in my existing organisation and the HR had told me that all 4 rounds will happen on the same day. I wanted to be mentally prepared for that as well.

After 1 month, the day finally came and all 4 rounds happened on the same day:

Round 1 (HLD) - Early morning, 1 hour

• At first, the interviewer introduced himself and then there was my introduction.
• This round was HLD round and the interviewer asked me HLD on a Book e-commerce system like Amazon was in early days. I tried to give an extensive design mentioning things like recommendation system, elastic search etc. The interviewer had given me only 15-20 mins for this and was actually interested in a bit more basic stuff. He further asked me about Kafta, CAP theorem etc.
• I was also asked many Leadership principles questions.
  At the end, I could not tell if the interviewer was satisfied or not. He was supportive and a good fellow.

Round 2 (Coding) - Afternoon, 1 hour

• I was asked 2 Leetcode medium level questions in this round. I had not solved these questions before.
• Following are the 2 questions:
  https://leetcode.com/problems/delete-and-earn/ (Dynamic programming)
  https://leetcode.com/problems/top-k-frequent-elements/ (Heap)
• Fortunately, I happened to solve both the questions with the most optimal solution in about 40 minutes and also did write the proper code.
• At the end, I was asked some Leadership principles questions.

This round went really well. The interviewer was nice and supportive.

Round 3 (LLD) - Afternoon, 1 hour

• I was asked to provide LLD on Doctor appointment booking system.
• I did design the proper classses and made sure to preserve the SOLID principles.
• In the end, I was asked further Leadership principle questions.

The round also went pretty well. The interviewer in this round was also nice and supportive.

Round 4 (Bar raiser round) - Late Afternoon, 1 hour
I knew that 2/3 rounds need to be positive in order to be eligible for Bar raiser. I thought that the decision might take some time and hence decided to go for lunch but was then informed that I am eligible to proceed for Bar raiser round.

It was scheduled for 3:45 pm which was in the next 30 mins. I decided to delay my meal.

• The interviewer was extremely chill person and gave me the following problem

Design a http client library that supports multiple retry mechanisms:

function retry(numberOfRetries: optional, typeOfRetry: optional, timeout)

1. Wait for incremental period of time for every retry (Eg. 1st retry after 1sec, 2nd retry after 2sec so on)

2. Wait for exponential period of time for every retry (Eg. 1st retry after 1sec, 3nd retry after 2sec, 3rd after 4sec so on)

3. Wait for constant time provided

4. Timeout

• At first, I got scared looking at the question and thought I had to implement some complex logic. I could not understand what is expected here. If it is HLD, coding or LLD.
• I asked clarifying questions from the interviewer and he told me that I should implement the retry function with the mentioned 4 ways and also if in future if I decide to implement it with a new way (lets say squared period of time), the code should undergo minimum change.
• I relaxed myself and thought for a couple of minutes. I realised that this was Design pattern question.
• I used the Strategy design pattern primarily to solve this problem and ensured the SOLID principles are obeyed.
• The interviewer seemed happy. He was a jolly person btw so it was hard to tell if he is happy because of my solution or just happy anyway.
• He further asked me some Leadership principle questions.

At the end, I was atleast satisfied with the solutions I had provided. The interviewer was an extremely chill person.

Post Interview Rounds
The interview process was a bit hectic as all the rounds happened on the same day. However, this has its own benefits. You might be in your ultimate form and clear all of them. The day might be good for you.

A couple of days later I was informed that I was selected. After that, some salary discussion also happened and I easily got what I had expected.

Suggestions:

• Amazon takes Leadership principle (LP) questions very seriously and it is also possible that all your rounds went well but you messed up your LP questions or took them too lightly. In that case, they will definitely reject you.
• It is alright to get scared during the interview, but then relax and think that it is alright to fail. Drink water and breathe properly so that your brain gets all the oxygen it needs.
• I would suggest applying to mutiple companies as there is always a possibility that you might mess up one or another. This also acts as a confidence booster when you have multiple options.
• Once you receive the offer from a FAANG company with your salary expectations, there is a very good possibility that your brain will try to avoid further unnecessary problem solving. I would suggest you to motivate yourself to not settle until you get your dream company. Be it FAANG or any other.
• In my case, Amazon was my primary focus as I am very much interested in Cloud/AI. So there goes my further Leetcode problem solving.

Offer : https://leetcode.com/discuss/compensation/2297546/Amazon-India-SDE2-July-2022

Google Interview Experience:
https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-experience/2328945/Google-L4-experience-(India)