Amazon | SDE II | Hyderabad
Summary
I recently completed my first-round interview for the SDE II position at Amazon in Hyderabad. The round included DSA questions and discussions on Amazon's Leadership Principles. Despite feeling I fumbled a bit on the principles, I have successfully moved to the next round.
Full Experience
I recently had my first-round interview for the SDE II role at Amazon in Hyderabad. The interview focused on Data Structures & Algorithms and Amazon's Leadership Principles.
For the DSA section, I was presented with two problems. The first involved minimizing the operational cost of reducing an array to a single element by repeatedly combining two numbers and adding their sum to the cost. I quickly recognized this as a variation of the "Minimum Cost to Connect Sticks" problem. The second DSA question was a variant of the "Rotten Oranges" problem.
The interview also covered Amazon's Leadership Principles, specifically "Customer Obsession" and "Invent & Simplify". I felt I fumbled a bit while answering these behavioral questions.
Despite my performance on the leadership principles, I'm glad to share that I have been selected for the next round. I'll provide an update after completing that.
Interview Questions (4)
In an array, pick two numbers, add them and put the sum back into the array. The sum will be the operation cost performed on the array until the size of array becomes 1. Find the min operational cost.
Input: [1, 2, 2, 2, 3]Output: 23
Combine 1 and 2 to get 3, resulting in [2, 2, 3, 3]. Combine 2 and 2 to get 4, resulting in [3, 3, 4]. Combine 3 and 3 to get 6, resulting in [4, 6]. Combine 4 and 6 to get 10, resulting in . The final sum is 23(3+4+6+10), which is the minimum possible sum.
A variant of the Rotten Oranges problem.
Discussion on the Amazon Leadership Principle: Customer Obsession.
Discussion on the Amazon Leadership Principle: Invent & Simplify.