Amazon SDE-2 Interview Experience
Location : Chennai
Experience : 3.1 Years
Overall Time Period : Last week of June and First week of September
Status : Rejected
Team : Amazon Kindle
Current company : PBC MNC
Role : MTS (Backend)
Leetcode Stats : 1128 (430 | 565 | 133)
Process :
The recruiter reached out to me over call and also followed up via mail regarding the interviews. Shared me the Online Assement links.
FF the events :
OA Done : June last week
Selection and Scheduling call : Early July
Expected Rounds : 4 (all Virtual)
Round 1 : DSA
Interviewer : From US (8 YOE)
Reschedule Count : 0
Timeline : First week of August
Intro : Quick introduction (~5 mins)
Problem: LRU Cache
This was unexpected, but LRU is one of my favorite problems (I’ve solved it more than 20 times).
Explained and solved in 10–15 minutes.
Rest of the round:
Two Leadership Principle questions.
Discussion about my current role and projects in Details.
Feedback : Inclined
Round 2 : LLD
Interviewer: From India (13 YOE)
Reschedule Count : 1
Timeline : First week of August
Intro : Quick introduction (~4 mins)
Problem : Bus Ticket Booking System
Total 6 requeirements were given to fullfill the Design. e.g: Service design, concurrency booking etc.
Twist:
I expected to design UML/class skeleton or working code. But Interviewer ask to design api and db schema. Honestly, I had only prepared for LLD (UML, skeleton code, or implementation). This turned into a mix of DB + microservices design, so I relied entirely on my experience and reflexes rather than preparation. Ended up designing the whole system. It appeaared like an HLD. We discussed a lot about Microservice pattern, Service modules (Bus service, Route Service), Choice of DBs, Normalisations etc etc.
Outcome:
The system had 6 main features, I was able to cover 2–3 in detail.
She asked many deep questions about my design choices.
The session took about an hour. We barely touched the LP portions(10 mints)
Feedback : Inclined
Round 3: HLD with Hiring Manager
Interviewer : From India (16 YOE)
Reschedule Count : 0
Timeline : Last week of August
Quick introduction (>5 mins), Since then a lot of questions about what I do, what kind of projects I do, My role etc etc. These lasted almost 35~40 mints
Problem: Book Recommendation System
Honestly you wont beleive, I preapared for 30+ HLD question and dropped this, thinking it would involve ML (I’m a clean backend engineer and assumed it wouldn’t be asked). Unfortunately, it was.
[You can skip this para explaining my mind]
I could have handle this. My mind went blank in that moment.
I know how Spotify’s song recommendation system works and could have mapped that knowledge to books recommendation system, but in the moment I froze and regretted skipping preparation.
I still managed to propose something, but I wasn’t satisfied with my answer.
Feedback : Not Inclined (Expected)
Round 4: Bar Raiser
Interviewer: From India (6 YOE)
Reschedule Count : 0
Timeline : First week of August
Interviewer: Very experienced in CP, friendly and professional
Intro: Quick introduction + Process explained clearly, basic introductions (10-12 mints) > Then asked LP questions
Problem: LCS (Longest Common Subsequence) variant
The problem description was vague, so I couldn’t identify it immediately.
I tried a basic greedy approach, but I knew it wouldn’t pass all test cases (interviewer agreed).
He hinted at brute force.
I identified it as a DP problem and proposed a solution. He agreed it would work but wasn’t the exact intended solution.
After further hints and discussion, I refined my approach and solved it.
Overall, it took about 3 hints.
Feedback : Not Inclined
Result: Waiting for Rejection mail
Tips Nobody asked for:
- Behave properly with the recruiter. They are the key
- Dont (even try to) cheat with AI models or anything, Interviewer knows it and will reject you even if he has felt suspicious
- For LLD and HLD, Amazon provides Bluscape for design and modeling. And It sucks. Practice some on this platform before the interview
- Dig deeper for knowledge, Solving the problem is not at all a parameter now.