Amazon [Off campus] | SDE 1 | Hyderabad | May 2021 [Rejected]

Status: New Grad from Tier 1 College
Position: Amazon SDE1
Location: Hyderabad (Interviews were completely virtual)
Month: May 2021

Application Process:
Received a mail from Amazon recruitment team for SDE1 opening. Applied for the same and was immediately processed for further rounds. Signed an NDA so would not be specifying the exact question.

Round 1: (Online coding / behavioral round)

Conducted on Aspiring Minds
Duration: 2.5 hrs
Question 1: Fill the truck
Question 2: Based on linked list
Behavioral questions: There were around 50 behavioral questions, having two possible options. I was asked to specify which option represented my inclination. Also I was asked whether I agreed or strongly agreed to the same.
Debugging Round: There were 7 coding questions, each with a bug that we need to fix so as to pass all test cases.
My thoughts / performance: Was able to solve both the programming questions along with complete explanation. For the behavioral part I tried to choose those options that were more aligned to Amazon's leadership principles.

Recruiter Call: Received feedback within 2 days post coding test. Was asked location preference and was aligned a date 15 days from the date of this call. I was informed that there will be 3 non elimination interviews. All the interviews were conducted in Chime and there was a live coding link (test editor with syntax highligting) for the first 3 rounds.

Round 2: (Technical round)

Duration: 1 hour
Jumped straight to coding questions
Question 1: LC easy string question.
Question 2: Knight in chessboard question
Question 3: Hashmap based easy level question

My thoughts / performance: I was initially told that there would be 2 questions. Solved both with expected complexities and wrote clean code. Since there was around 20 minutes left on the clock he proceeded to the 3rd question. I was able to solve the same and wrote clean code. The interviewer seemed thoroughly impressed.

Round 3: (Technical round)

Duration: 1 hour
Started with questions on my current work experience and my previous projects
Behavioral questions were also asked based on Amazon Leadership Principles
Question 1: LC Hard BFS based Graph question combined with mathematical formula. There were two tricky parts in this question, one was to identify the pattern in order to generate the mathematical formula. Other was to use BFS to optimize the time complexity.
Question 2: Array based question.

My thoughts / performance: I was able to explain / answer all the questions on my resume, the interviewer seemed satisfied with the same. For the behavioral questions I followed the STAR principle. I was able to answer the technical question, wrote a clean code and suggested approaches for the follow ups which the interviewer seemed good to go.

Round 4: (Technical round)

Duration: 1 hour
Started with my introduction. Directly jumped onto DSA questions.
Question 1: LC Hard stack based question which had to be optimised using two pointer method. Interviewers did not allow me to make any modifications once I presented my solution.
Question 2: Minimum platforms question

My thoughts / performance: I was able to explain / answer all the questions on my resume but the interviewers did not seemed satisfied with the same. Their tone was extremely rude and were undermining my solutions even though the complexity was better. For the behavioral questions I followed the STAR principle. I was able to answer the technical question, wrote a clean code and suggested approaches for the follow ups.

My impression of Amazon (👎): In first two rounds the interviewers were friendly, kind and enthusiastically answered all of my questions. They even took extra 15-20 mins in the end to answer all of my questions. But in the third round, the interviewers were really rude. They were not letting me explain my solution at all and kept on interuppting me. Also, I thought they were quite rigid because when I presented a different approach with better space complexity, they actually discouraged me to implement it by saying it would take too much time and that I would get confused. This was honestly one of the worst interview experienced I have ever had. Naturally, I did not feel much sad when the rejection mail came.

Verdict: Rejected

General thoughts on interviews:

• The technical questions asked were more towards hard questions so really good preparation is needed to crack them.
• There was a good amount of focus on behavioral questions based on Amazon Leadership principles
• In programming questions, writing clean code was expected (naming variables with relevant names, syntax error free code and usage of modularity and reusability)
• Questions were sometimes open ended, so I was expected to ask clarifying questions before making any assumptions.
• There was also a good amount of focus on edge cases, and I made sure I didn't miss out on any.

Preparation Strategy:

• DS and Algo focus was very important and company wise preparation would surely help
• Knowledge on Amazon's Leadership Principles is a must and one should be able to correlate their experiences with the questions asked (STAR principle)
• No design questions were asked in my case but I have seen basic questions on class based programming being asked in other interviews
• Overall be strong, confident and honest during preparation and while interviewing as well.