Background: 2 years experience at Fintech as a Full Stack Developer
Back in February, I applied for an SDE-2 position at Amazon Hyderabad through a referral. I completed the online assessment (OA). While I don’t remember the exact questions, they were quite easy, and I was able to solve all of them within time.
Soon after the OA, I got an email that I was shortlisted for interviews. The HR called me the next day to check a few details like my preferred job location, experience. I mentioned Hyderabad, but the HR informed me that there were no open positions in Hyderabad at the time—only Bangalore had openings. I also told them I had 1.5 years of experience, and the HR said they’d check with the hiring manager and get back. Unfortunately, I never heard back. I even sent a follow-up email, but didn’t get any reply.
Fast Forward to July
I got a call from a different HR, saying that there were openings in Hyderabad for the SDE-2 role. The HR asked if I was still interested and told me the interviews would be in-person at the Amazon office in Hyderabad. I said yes.
Interview Day (In-Person)
I reached the Amazon Hyderabad campus and the HR had given goodies for the people who came for interview for SDE-2 role.
Round 1: LPs + Coding
There were two SDE-2s—one was the main interviewer, and the other was shadowing.
The round began with LP question and then coding questions.
- Q1: https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-points-you-can-obtain-from-cards/description/
- I solved this in 15 minutes by explaining the logic from brute force to optimized solution, then typed the code and dry-ran it.
- Q2: https://leetcode.com/problems/asteroid-collision/description/ (same question asked in a different way)
- The solution that I intially gave had a mistake, which I found during the dry run. Then after a few minutes, I asked for a hint, but couldn’t fully understand it. After thinking for a while, I came up with another solution that worked. The interviewer was happy with it. I asked if I should code this too. The interviewer said there were only 5 minutes left, and I said I could finish it in time—which I did.
Round 2: LPs + Low-Level Design (Tic-Tac-Toe)
This round began with 4 LP questions, followed by the LLD of a Tic-Tac-Toe game. I was asked to list down all the entities, and explain how the game works and how it ends. There were many follow-up questions, and I answered them.
At the end, I was asked to draw the class diagram and write the code in any language (I chose C++) for the method to check if the game is over.
Round 3: LPs + High-Level Design (Event Booking System)
The interviewer began by asking a few questions about the project I was currently working on. This was followed by a set of leadership principle questions. After about 30 minutes, the interviewer asked me to design an event booking system on the whiteboard.
By the time this round ended, it was past 6 PM and most people had already left. The HR then informed me that the final round would be conducted virtually and asked me to leave for the day. On the next Monday, HR called and informed me about the last round and scheduled it after a couple of days.
Round 4: (Virtual – Bar Raiser): LPs + 2 Coding Questions
A couple of days later, I attended the final virtual round. The interviewer asked a few leadership principle questions followed by coding questions.
- Q1: https://leetcode.com/problems/house-robber-ii/description/
- Q2: https://leetcode.com/problems/boats-to-save-people/
I was able to answer both the questions and type the solutions.
Final Discussion
On the same day, the HR called and asked how the interview went. They said they would get back to me by the end of the next day. As mentioned, the next day I got another call from HR asking for details like my current CTC, notice period, total experience, and preferred location.
A couple of days later, the HR called and told me I was selected :)