Amazon SDE-1 Interview Experience (2024 Grad | 1.7 YOE | Tier-3 College) – ✅ Selected
Summary
I recently received an offer for the SDE-1 role at Amazon. I'm sharing my detailed interview experience, which included an Online Assessment, two technical rounds, and a Bar Raiser behavioral round, ultimately leading to my selection.
Full Experience
Hello Everyone,
I recently received an offer for the SDE-1 role at Amazon, and since this community helped me a lot during my preparation, I want to give back by sharing my detailed interview experience.
👤 BackgroundExperience: 5 months Internship + 1.7 years Full-Time
Graduation: 2024, Tier-3 College
Applied: June 22, 2025 (via Amazon Job Portal)
🧪 Online Assessment
Date: September 22, 2025
Standard DSA-based OA (coding + work style assessment).
📩 Recruiter Outreach
Date: November 11, 2025
Got contacted by the recruiter to schedule interviews.
🔹 Round 1 – Technical
Date: November 14, 2025
Panel: 2 Interviewers
Question:
A Map + String-based simulation problem relating to Amazon Shipping problem.
Multiple follow-ups on:
- Approach
- Optimizations
- Time and Space Complexity
- Real-world test cases
🔹 Round 2 – Technical
Originally: November 24, 2025
Rescheduled to: December 4, 2025
DSA Question:
Given a row-wise sorted m × n matrix of 0s and 1s, find the row with the maximum number of 1s.
I discussed three approaches:
- Brute force (O(m × n))
- Binary search on each row (O(m log n)) - asked more for optimization.
- Optimized approach (O(m + n)) — interviewer was satisfied after this.
- Tell me about a time when you found an issue in a product and resolved it (even though it wasn’t your task).
- Tell me about a time when you handled an urgent requirement or made a trade-off decision.
⏳ 2 Months of Silence
After Round 2, there was complete silence for almost 2 months.
During this period, I saw news about layoffs at Amazon and honestly thought the opportunity was gone.
On February 4, 2026, I replied to the AUTA loop scheduler mail to politely ask for an update.
Thankfully, they responded and scheduled the final round.
Lesson: Always follow up professionally. Don’t assume rejection.
🔹 Round 3 – Bar Raiser (Behavioral)
Originally: Feb 6, 2026
Rescheduled to: Feb 10, 2026
This round was completely behavioral and very intense.
Questions Asked:
- Tell me about a time you received critical feedback. How did you work on it?
- Tell me about a technically complex discussion you had. What was the outcome? What was the most valuable insight?
- Tell me about a difficult situation that required you to deep dive. How did you validate your approach? What would you do differently today?
- Tell me about a time you missed a commitment.
- Tell me about a challenging implementation you handled.
At last, Interviewer said that she has got enough details and has noted the points also and asked if i had any question and said giving you back your 20 minutes.
I thought it went “okay-ish” — but never underestimate a solid, structured answer aligned with Leadership Principles.
🎉 Verdict: SELECTED
Got a call from HR the next day with the positive news.
Extremely grateful and humbled.
|| Har Har Mahadev ||
|| Jai Shree Ram ||
Interview Questions (8)
Find Row with Max 1s in Sorted Matrix
Given a row-wise sorted m × n matrix of 0s and 1s, find the row with the maximum number of 1s.
Tell me about a time when you found an issue in a product and resolved it (even though it wasn’t your task).
Tell me about a time when you found an issue in a product and resolved it (even though it wasn’t your task).
Tell me about a time when you handled an urgent requirement or made a trade-off decision.
Tell me about a time when you handled an urgent requirement or made a trade-off decision.
Tell me about a time you received critical feedback. How did you work on it?
Tell me about a time you received critical feedback. How did you work on it?
Tell me about a technically complex discussion you had.
Tell me about a technically complex discussion you had. What was the outcome? What was the most valuable insight?
Tell me about a difficult situation that required you to deep dive.
Tell me about a difficult situation that required me to deep dive. How did you validate your approach? What would you do differently today?
Tell me about a time you missed a commitment.
Tell me about a time you missed a commitment.
Tell me about a challenging implementation you handled.
Tell me about a challenging implementation you handled.
Preparation Tips
Key Takeaways
- Strong DSA fundamentals are mandatory.
- Know time/space complexity inside-out.
- Prepare real, detailed Leadership Principle stories.
- Expect heavy cross-questioning in the Bar Raiser round.
- Always check your spam folder for scheduling emails (I almost missed one).
- Follow up politely if there's silence.
- DSA Questions - Search for krishnadey30 Github LeetCode-Questions-CompanyWise in Google
- Leadership Principle - For stories, Try finding out insidents from you past experinece and and Give those to Chatgpt to frame them according to LPs with possible followups.
All the best to everyone preparing 🚀