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Summary
I recently interviewed for an SDE-1 position at Amazon and successfully received an offer. The interview process involved multiple rounds focusing on Data Structures & Algorithms combined with Amazon's Leadership Principles.
Full Experience
I recently interviewed for the SDE-1 role at Amazon and I'm thrilled to share that I received an offer!
Round 1: DSA + Leadership Principles (LP)
This round consisted of one DSA question and one LP question. For the DSA part, I was given a matrix of 0s and 1s and asked to count the number of islands. The catch was that if two islands had only a one-cell gap, they should be considered connected. The key constraint here was to solve it without using any extra space. The interviewer was very strict about the space constraint and didn't provide any hints, which made it quite challenging.
Round 2: 2 DSA Questions + 1 LP
In this round, I faced two DSA questions and one LP question. The first DSA problem involved implementing add and remove methods, which were similar to an LRU Cache but with some variations. There was a follow-up to optimize one method assuming the other is called less frequently. I suggested some optimizations but unfortunately ran out of time, completing it in about 40 minutes.
The second DSA question, which I called the "Story Points Problem," asked me to determine the minimum value of X (daily capacity) required to complete all tasks in Y days, given an array of story points. A follow-up explored what if X could be a floating-point value. The interviewer kept asking me to find a bug in my code, but later provided a test case where my solution actually worked correctly, which felt more like a test than a collaborative discussion.
Round 3: Leadership Principles (LP) Based
This round was entirely behavioral, focusing on Amazon's Leadership Principles. I was asked a series of questions:
- Tell me about a time when you did something outside your responsibility.
- Tell me about a time when you worked on something complex.
- Tell me about a time when you failed to deliver.
- Tell me about a time when you had to push back (I wasn't entirely sure what this meant).
I personally feel that I'm not very good at behavioral questions, and I thought this round went quite poorly. I'm still surprised I passed it.
Overall, it was a challenging but rewarding experience. I'll be joining Amazon Hyderabad soon!
Interview Questions (7)
Given a matrix consisting of 0s and 1s, count the number of islands (connected components of 1s). Key Constraint: If there is a gap of only one cell between two islands, they should be considered connected. Challenge: No extra space allowed.
Implement add and remove methods similar to an LRU Cache, but with some variations. Follow-up: Optimize one method assuming the other is called less frequently.
Given an array of story points for tasks, determine the minimum value of X (daily capacity) required to complete all tasks in Y days. Follow-up: What if X is a floating-point value?
Tell me about a time when you did something outside your responsibility.
Tell me about a time when you worked on something complex.
Tell me about a time when you failed to deliver.
Tell me about a time when you had to push back (not sure what this meant).