Reading interview experiences on LeetCode Discuss helped me a lot throughout my preparation. Seeing how others shared their journeys, timelines, interview structures, and learnings helped me prepare in a more structured way.

So here's my turn to give back to the community.

Background

• B.Tech 2025 Graduate
• Amazon SDE Intern (2025)
• Currently working as an Application Engineer at a product-based company (~8 months experience)

Timeline

• January 2026 – Applied through referral
• February 2026 – Received and completed OA

Interview Loop

Round 1 (May 14) – SDE-1

• 2 Leadership Principle discussions
• 2 DSA questions

Round 2 (May 15) – SDE-2

• 1 Leadership Principle discussion
• 2 DSA questions

Hiring Manager Round (June 4)

• DSA / LLD discussion
• GenAI discussion

Bar Raiser Round (June 11)

• Leadership Principles focused
• 1 technical discussion (no coding)

Offer Confirmation (June 15)

Overall Experience

A few things stood out to me:

• Leadership Principles are equally important as DSA.
• Interviewers continuously deep dive into your answers rather than moving to the next question quickly.
• Metrics and impact matter a lot, especially when discussing projects.
• Knowing the "why" behind your decisions is just as important as the decision itself.
• For DSA, interviewers were interested in brute force, optimization, trade-offs, edge cases, and complexity analysis.
• Thinking out loud helps a lot.

What I personally liked about the process was that it never felt like a rapid-fire question-and-answer session. Most discussions felt like collaborative problem-solving and deep dives into past experiences.

Final Thoughts

If you're currently preparing, don't let setbacks convince you that an opportunity is gone forever. Keep learning, keep improving, and keep showing up.

Sometimes the comeback is even better than the original plan.

Thanks to everyone who shares their experiences here—it genuinely helps more people than you might realize.