Amazon SDE2 | Interview experience
Summary
I recently interviewed for an SDE2 position at Amazon, participating in a Super Day that consisted of three distinct rounds, covering data structures and algorithms, and system design.
Full Experience
I went through a Super Day for the SDE2 role at Amazon, which was structured into three main rounds.
Round 1: This round focused on Data Structures and Algorithms. The initial problem involved searching for a node in a binary tree and returning the path from the root to that node if found. The interviewer then extended this question to an N-ary tree, where nodes can have multiple children.
Round 2: This was another Data Structures and Algorithms round. I was given a 2D grid problem where I needed to determine if a robot could reach a destination from a source. The grid had '0' representing obstacles and '1' representing traversable paths, and I was asked to provide an optimized code solution.
Round 3: This round was dedicated to System Design. The core problem was to design a Chess Board. Following that, the discussion extended to implementing a player matching strategy. This strategy needed to be adaptable based on criteria like the number of wins, scores, and average time to win, with configurable difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard) utilizing different combinations of these metrics.
Interview Questions (3)
Given a binary tree, search for a specific node. If found, return the path from the root to that node. The interviewer then extended this problem to an N-ary tree (a tree where each node can have N number of children).
Determine if a robot can reach a destination from a source in a 2D grid. The grid contains '0' for obstacles (robot cannot move) and '1' for paths (robot can move). I was asked to provide an optimized code solution.
Design a chess board system. An extended part of the problem involved implementing a player matching strategy based on various criteria: number of wins, scores, and average time to win. The strategy could be configured as 'easy' (using only score), 'medium' (using score and number of wins), or 'hard' (considering all fields).