Back in August, I applied for the Amazon SDE Intern (6 months) role — Job ID: 3068961. It was an off-campus opportunity and honestly, one of the most exciting interview experiences I’ve had so far.

The process started with an Online Assessment that included:
Two DSA questions — one from Graphs and another from Sliding Window (both medium to hard).
A bunch of Leadership Principles–based MCQs, which tested how well you align with Amazon’s work culture.
After clearing the OA, I got a mail saying my interview would be scheduled sometime between 8–26 Sept… but nothing happened till then.
Then out of nowhere, on 27th October, I got the confirmation that my interview was scheduled for the next day — 28th October!

The interview lasted for 1 hour and was taken by an engineer with 4 years of experience in databases.
We started with a short intro and a discussion on my project , went through API endpoints, request–response cycles, and overall architecture.
Then came the DSA round
#Question 1: Find the number of negative integers in an m x n matrix sorted in decreasing order (rows & columns).
I first gave a brute-force approach, then optimized it to O(m + n) using the matrix property. It took me around 28 mins to write, debug, and finalize the solution.
#Question 2: Design a data structure that supports insert, delete, and getRandom in O(1).
I combined a vector and an unordered_map to handle both constant-time operations efficiently. Explained the logic and space complexity — he seemed happy with the approach.
The interview wrapped up right on time, and I got the chance to ask a few questions in the end too.

Overall, it was a smooth and insightful experience. The questions were medium-level, but what really mattered was clarity, confidence, and consistency.
Regular practice and strong fundamentals are what truly make a difference in interviews.