Hello everyone!
I recently received an SDE-1 offer from Amazon AUTA and wanted to share my complete interview experience to help others in their preparation.
For those currently in the process of Amazon, this post will really help you to keep your hopes high. The entire process lasted about 6 months (Application submission in December 2024, Offer in June 2025)
🧠 Online Assessment (OA)
Date: Jan 2025
Platform: HackerRank
Duration: 3-4 hours
Structure:
- Part 1: 2 DSA questions, Medium Difficulty
- Part 2: Work Simulation, Leadership Principles
Coding Questions:
- Greedy based medium difficulty question
- Simulation type tree question, got MLE on recursive solution, passed all test cases on iterative solution.
My Approach:
Solved both the DSA questions in under 45 mins, and then took the rest of the time to solve leadership and work simulation parts.
🗣️ Round 1 – Technical Interview (DSA)
Date: March 2025
Duration: ~60 minutes
Platform: Amazon Chime
Note: This round was re-scheduled two times, both the time interviewers did not show up :( .
Questions:
- Had Solved this problem before, came with an optimal solution in 15-20 mins.
- Problem 2: Similar to : https://leetcode.com/problems/asteroid-collision/description/
- Hard difficulty, came with the code for a semi-optimal solution, gave an approach in the end for a optimal solution.
- Leadership Questions and Questions about my current company.
💻 Round 2 – Technical Interview (DSA)
Date: May 2025
Duration: ~75 minutes
Platform: Amazon Chime
Note: Got a mail after one week after round-1 stating that I cleared the previous round and will have a second round. Later I got the schedule, but this is where I occurred alot of issues. I had this round re-scheduled a total of 7 times, with most of the times interviewer simply did not show up without any prior communication. Really lost hope and in the end, but atlast my interview did happen.
Questions:
- Came up with a solution in under 15-20mins, medium dificulty.
- Problem 2: Similar to : https://leetcode.com/problems/next-permutation/
- Hard Difficulty (for me), Although I had solved this prior, I had no idea for the optimal solution. I tried to come up with an optimal approach, came up with a solution, but did not have the time left to code. Interviewer was mildly satisfied.
- Standard LP questions
🤝 Round 3 – Bar Raiser (Behavioral + LP + DSA)
Date: May 2025
Duration: ~60 minutes
Platform: Amazon Chime
Note : Got a mail after a week of round-2 that i have cleared the round, and they are acitvely working on scheduling my round -3. Got a call from Loop scheduler 1.5 weeks after for the round to be scheduled on Saturday, I immediately agreed (as I had 0 holidays left due Round-2 being re-scheduled so many times), and I got the mail for schedule. Suprisingly there were two interviewers, one really senior, one SDE-2.
One more thing, this specific mail did not have live code link, thus I was not expecting a DSA question, but in the interview it was asked.
Format:
- 30 mins LP Questions.
- 30 mins DSA Question
Questions:
- Leadership Principles
- Tell me about a time you got feedback
- Tell me about a time you faced critical issues
- Tell me about a time you went beyond your task/job
- Follow ups on all
- DSA
- Problem : https://leetcode.com/problems/count-number-of-nice-subarrays/description/
- Came up with a 2-pass approach, interviewer was satisfied enough, medium difficulty.
Current Package
CTC : 7 LPA
YOE : 9 Months
📬 Offer
Role: SDE-1
Location: Bengaluru
Date : June 2025
Package :
Base Pay : 19,17,000
Sign-on Bonus Year 1 (INR): 6,47,000
Sign-on Bonus Year 2 (INR) :5,18,000
Restricted Stock Unit Value (RSU) (4 years)(INR):15,56,000
Total CTC : 48 L +
Note: Recieved the offer after almost 2.5 weeks after the the last round, I was constantly mailing the loop scheduler back and in the end the recruiter finally called me.
Tips (Important)
- Solve standard DSA sheets, interview questions are mostly asked around these with most of them being medium difficulty.
- Dont wait for the reply, simply mail the loop scheduler mail back for an update, my loop mail thread was around 40 mails.
- For LP questions, prepare a list of 30-40 questions, you can easily find on leetcode, and run a deep research query on chatgpt along with your resume, get STAR based answers, and have follow up answers also prepared.
Final Thoughts:
I am really grateful to recieve this offer and finally my hardwork did pay off. I hope this post will help other people around who are in the process, and feel like they stuck in the re-scheduling loop.
Feel free to ask questions in the comments. Happy to help! 😊