My Amazon Interview Experience – Programmer Analyst 1

Hey everyone, I wanted to share my recent Amazon interview experience for the Programmer Analyst - 1 role. I applied for SDE-1 positions, so getting an OA for this role was a surprise, but I decided to go ahead with it. Here’s how it went:

Online Assessment (Feb 12, 2024)

• 1 Coding Question (Leetcode Easy question)
• 65 MCQs (Covered DSA, CS Fundamentals, and Amazon’s Tech Stack)

I received an email on Feb 14 confirming that I was shortlisted for interviews.

Interview Rounds

Round 1 (Feb 17, 2024)

The interviewer started by asking about my experience. Given that I work as a Software Developer at one of the top MNC, he asked if I was sure about this role. I expressed my preference for an SDE-1 position, but he mentioned that he couldn’t change the role at this stage.

He then moved on to DSA questions:

1. Merge Intervals Variant: I quickly solved it but made a mistake in over-generalizing the solution instead of solving for a specific case. The interviewer pointed it out, and I corrected my approach.
2. Island Flooding (Graph-based, BFS/DFS + HashMap): I hadn’t seen this before. Due to multiple follow-ups on Q1, only 10 minutes remained. I identified the Queue + Map pattern and provided a solution, which seemed to satisfy the interviewer.

➡️ Overall, I think I did well, except for initially misinterpreting the first question’s requirements.

Round 2 (Feb 17, 2024 - Later that day)

Same format as Round 1.

Initially I was asked a question based on Leadership principle and we discussed on it for 15 mins.

1. Tricky Date Sorting Question: I approached it with a Math + Greedy formula, but the interviewer expected a Backtracking solution. I had to convince him why my approach worked with multiple additional testcases.

2. Debugging a Sudoku Solver: Instead of implementing from scratch, I had to debug an existing code snippet. I fixed major issues, but some parts were unclear due to time constraints.

➡️ Despite taking time to explain Q1, the interviewer was happy with my optimized approach and he told me I did well overall.

Hiring Manager Round (Feb 19, 2024)

This was rescheduled from Feb 18. It focused on:

• Leadership Principles (LP) Questions
• Resume-based discussions

The hiring manager seemed impressed by my projects, and we had a great discussion. However, at the end, he advised me not to take this role, saying it wouldn’t be a good fit since I already was working as a software developer and this would be a Junior role .He suggested I apply for SDE roles instead. I explained my reasons for switching jobs and asked if I could be reconsidered for SDE role instead. He said he’d discuss it with HR and get back to me.

Final Outcome

➡️ No response after 2 weeks.

I came to know that people who had applied with me already got acceptance mail in 2 days. I don’t know where things went wrong. I performed well in coding rounds, and the hiring manager seemed interested, but it feels like I was rejected due to the role mismatch. Although I expressed in the last round that I would take PA-1 role as well.

This pattern has repeated in multiple interview, any guidance or insights would be greatly appreciated!