Amazon SDE-1 | AUTA Interview Experience | Selected
Summary
Secured SDE-1 role at Amazon after a multi-round interview process. The interview included three rounds of technical challenges and a bar raiser round with a mix of DSA and behavioral questions. The candidate successfully solved several LeetCode-style problems and demonstrated strong problem-solving skills despite the complexity of the final challenge.
Full Experience
Applied in August 2025 and participated in an OA but received no results for months. In November, received an interview call from Amazon.
Round 1 (Friday)
Two questions were asked:
Solved both questions. Interviewer asked about time complexity and space complexity for each solution. Answered it and that was it for the round.
Round 2 (Monday)
Again two questions:
Solved the first question easily. For the second question, knew the approach with parent map and BFS but interviewer wanted an approach without storing parent. Took some time to figure out the recursive approach as it was a new method. Interviewer asked about time and space complexity of all solutions. Answered and was satisfied with the code and other answers, wrapping up.
Round 3 (Bar raiser) (Next Wednesday)
Told by HR that only three LP questions would be asked. Prepared stories for FAQs. But interviewer gave one DSA problem:
Given the root of a tree, a source and a target. Find the shortest path from source to target and print the path using 'A', 'B', 'C' codes. Solved with parent map and BFS, but interviewer wanted optimization without extra space. Took 30 mins to reach solution, proposed LCA approach with DFS modification for path printing.
After this, a couple of LP scenario-based questions were asked, which felt more like formality. Provided prepared answers.
Result was declared a week later with a job offer.
Compensation
Current: Fintech MNC with base 13.4 lpa, joining bonus 3L, relocation 1L, performance 10-15% of base. YOE: 1 year 4 months.
Offered: Base 19,17,000 lpa, joining bonus (year 1) 6,47,000, (year 2) 5,18,000, RSUs 15,56,000 (Vested in 4 years, 5%, 15%, 40%, 40%).
Thanked the LeetCode community for help during preparation. Posted this to assist others.
Interview Questions (5)
Given the root of a binary tree, a source node, and a target node, find the shortest path from source to target and print the path using 'A', 'B', 'C' codes for left, right, and parent moves respectively.