Amazon SDE-1 Interview Experience | Verdict - SELECTED ✅
Summary
I interviewed for an SDE-1 role at Amazon through their University Talent Acquisition program and successfully received an offer. The hiring process involved an Online Assessment, a Phone Screen, and three intensive technical rounds focusing on Data Structures & Algorithms, and Amazon's Leadership Principles.
Full Experience
I applied for the Software Development Engineer I position at Amazon via their University Talent Acquisition program on October 2nd. The process began with an Online Assessment on October 27th.
Online Assessment (Oct 27)
The OA consisted of two DSA questions: one easy and one medium-hard problem involving binary search on prefix sums. I was able to solve both questions completely.
Phone Screen (Dec 5)
After being contacted by a recruiter on December 1st, I had my phone screen. This round included one Leadership Principle (LP) question: "Tell me about a time you learned something new," and one DSA problem that was similar to LeetCode's Rotting Oranges.
Technical Round 1 (Dec 12)
This was the first of the loop rounds. It started with an LP question: "Tell me about a time you solved a complex problem." Following that, I was given two DSA questions: one was directly Decode Ways, and the second was a variant of Max Consecutive Ones III, with a follow-up to return the indices to be flipped instead of just the length.
Technical Round 2 (Dec 16)
In this round, I faced two LP questions: "Tell me about a project you are most proud of" and "Describe a time you went beyond your defined responsibilities." The DSA question was Even Odd Tree, and I was specifically asked to solve it using both DFS and BFS approaches, comparing their trade-offs. This round really emphasized reasoning, clarity, and trade-off discussions, not just coding ability.
Bar Raiser Style Round (Dec 22)
The final round was a Bar Raiser style interview, featuring two LP questions: "Tell me about a complex issue you worked on" and "Describe a time you received feedback from your manager and how you acted on it."
I received the offer on December 23rd, concluding a successful interview journey.
Interview Questions (11)
I was given a medium-hard Data Structures and Algorithms problem that required applying binary search techniques on prefix sums. The specific problem details are not explicitly recalled, but the core approach involved leveraging prefix sums to optimize search operations.
Describe a situation where you had to learn something new. What was it, how did you approach learning it, and what was the outcome?
I was given a Data Structures and Algorithms problem similar to LeetCode's Rotting Oranges. The problem involves a grid representing oranges, where 0 is an empty cell, 1 is a fresh orange, and 2 is a rotten orange. Every minute, any fresh orange that is 4-directionally adjacent to a rotten orange becomes rotten. The task is to find the minimum number of minutes until no fresh oranges remain, or return -1 if it's impossible.
Describe a complex problem you encountered. How did you identify it, what steps did you take to solve it, and what was the resolution?
Given a string s containing only digits, return the number of ways to decode it. A message containing letters from A-Z can be encoded into numbers using the mapping: 'A' -> 1, 'B' -> 2, ..., 'Z' -> 26. Grouping digits can only be done if the resulting number is between 1 and 26. For example, '12' can be decoded as 'AB' (1 2) or 'L' (12).
I was given a variant of LeetCode's Max Consecutive Ones III problem. The original problem asks for the maximum number of consecutive 1's in an array nums if you can flip at most k 0's to 1's. My variant specifically required not just returning the maximum length, but also identifying and returning the actual indices of the 0's that were flipped to achieve that maximum length.
Tell me about a project you are most proud of. What was your role, what challenges did you face, and what was the impact?
Describe a situation where you went above and beyond your defined responsibilities to achieve a goal or help your team.
I was asked to solve LeetCode's Even Odd Tree problem. Given the root of a binary tree, determine if it is an Even-Odd tree. An Even-Odd tree has the following properties: the root is at level 0, its children are at level 1, its grandchildren are at level 2, and so on. For every even-indexed level, all nodes at that level have odd integer values and are in strictly increasing order from left to right. For every odd-indexed level, all nodes at that level have even integer values and are in strictly decreasing order from left to right. I was specifically asked to solve this using both DFS and BFS approaches and discuss their trade-offs during the interview.
Describe a complex technical or non-technical issue you have worked on. How did you approach it, what was the impact, and what did you learn?
Tell me about a time you received constructive feedback from your manager. How did you react to it, and what specific actions did you take based on that feedback?