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Summary
I interviewed for an SDE II position at Amazon, which consisted of 4 onsite rounds covering data structures & algorithms, system design, and leadership principles. I received an SDE I offer from Amazon but ultimately accepted an SDE II-equivalent position at a different FAANG company.
Full Experience
SDE II Amazon Loop Interview
The final onsite interview had 4 rounds. The questions I was given were vague and there was no function signatures or starter code. All questions listed below are similar but not exactly what I was given.
Round 1:
Interviewer was SDE II from prospective team. Given a problem similar to this. One followup relating to multiple words in a string and then ordering new strings based on number of occurrences of a given query.
Leadership principles:
- Tell me about a time you failed.
- Tell me about how you step up to lead your team in your current role.
Round 2:
Interviewer was a team lead for adjacent team. Problem was a combination of this and this. Followups involved sorting and reducing the space complexity of solution to be minimal.
Leadership principles:
- Tell me about a time when you removed complexity from customers.
- Tell me about how you get buy-in from your coworkers.
Round 3:
Interviewer was higher level, not SDE. System design round, it was an extremely common question that I had seen before.
Leadership principles:
- Tell me about a time you failed. (again)
- Tell me about a time you went over and above for a customer.
Round 4
Interviewer was prospective team lead. Asked to do something like find words in a matrix of letters.
Leadership principles:
- Tell me about a time when you dealt an unreasonable customer request.
Self-Feedback
Be prepared for repeated leadership questions from Amazon since every interviewer asks non-technical questions and there can be significant overlap.
I hadn't done a system design round before and I rushed my answers a bit. I had practiced enough to explain "a CDN provides x,y,z benefits (in general)" but I had not practiced enough to be able to say "a CDN is likely the best solution to the scaling problem you just suggested because it has "x,y,z benefits to the exact system we are discussing". C'est la vie.
When asked about the tech stack I was using at my role at the time, I let on that the tech stack is relatively old, which led to further questions. I should have avoided this question, my mistake.
Round 4 could have been better. The vibes were off from the get-go which hurt my performance in the leadership questions. I solved the problem with BFS and a trie. After the interview, I realized that I never clarified whether it was a traditional word search or more like NYT Strands (or even if letters can be reused). Despite providing a solution to a problem, I may very well have not solved the intended problem.
Result
Amazon offered an SDE I position. I landed an SDE II-equivalent position at a different faang company a week later.
I can only focus on the things that I can control throughout an interview process. Thank you for reading.
Interview Questions (10)
Given a list of words, return the k most frequent words. The output should be sorted by frequency from highest to lowest. If two words have the same frequency, then the word with the lower alphabetical order should come first. One followup relating to multiple words in a string and then ordering new strings based on number of occurrences of a given query.
Tell me about a time you failed.
Tell me about how you step up to lead your team in your current role.
The problem was a combination of concepts found in 'Maximum Number of Occurrences of a Substring' (https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-number-of-occurrences-of-a-substring/description/) and 'Find Occurrences of an Element in an Array' (https://leetcode.com/problems/find-occurrences-of-an-element-in-an-array/description/). Followups involved sorting and reducing the space complexity of solution to be minimal.
Tell me about a time when you removed complexity from customers.
Tell me about how you get buy-in from your coworkers.
Tell me about a time you failed.
Tell me about a time you went over and above for a customer.
Problem involved finding words in a matrix of letters. The candidate solved it using BFS and a Trie, though they later wondered if it was a traditional word search or more like NYT Strands (or even if letters can be reused).
Tell me about a time when you dealt an unreasonable customer request.
Preparation Tips
Be prepared for repeated leadership questions from Amazon since every interviewer asks non-technical questions and there can be significant overlap.
I hadn't done a system design round before and I rushed my answers a bit. I had practiced enough to explain "a CDN provides x,y,z benefits (in general)" but I had not practiced enough to be able to say "a CDN is likely the best solution to the scaling problem you just suggested because it has "x,y,z benefits to the exact system we are discussing". C'est la vie.
When asked about the tech stack I was using at my role at the time, I let on that the tech stack is relatively old, which led to further questions. I should have avoided this question, my mistake.
Round 4 could have been better. The vibes were off from the get-go which hurt my performance in the leadership questions. I solved the problem with BFS and a trie. After the interview, I realized that I never clarified whether it was a traditional word search or more like NYT Strands (or even if letters can be reused). Despite providing a solution to a problem, I may very well have not solved the intended problem.