Amazon | SDE2 L5 | Hyderabad | Interview Experience
Summary
I successfully interviewed for an SDE 2 (L5) position at Amazon Hyderabad, clearing an Online Assessment, followed by Low-Level Design, Data Structures & Algorithms, High-Level Design, and Bar Raiser rounds, ultimately receiving an offer within seven days.
Full Experience
Hey Everyone, I wanted to share my recent interview experience for SDE 2 (L5) at Amazon.
Background:
YoE: 3.5 yrs at Microsoft + 6 month intern at Amazon College: Tier-1
A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn regarding an upcoming in‑person hiring day scheduled for next week, and I applied.
R0: Online Assessment
DSA: 2 Questions. Slightly on the harder side. Solved 2/2 System Design: Answered scenario-based design questions. Work Style Assessment: Focused on Amazon’s Leadership Principles (LPs).
I was told I cleared the OA and got the interview details within 2 days of OA. 3 rounds were scheduled. It was later made into virtual rounds instead of in-person.
R1: LLD Round
- (20 mins) Intro + Leadership Principles
- (40 mins) Design a Coffee machine.
- Full requirements werent given. All the requirements were posed as follow-ups to see if the design was extensible to handle new requirements.
I was able to answer the follow-ups decently.
R2: DSA Round
- (20 mins) Intro + Leadership Principles
- (40 mins) 2 Coding Questions. I have to write full working code.
- Given a array
serversofnservers,servers[i]represents the number of tasks the i'th server has. You have a solver which can solvertasks in an hour. You can use the solver on only one server at a time. Find the minimumrrequired to solve all tasks withinKhours.- Solved it using discrete binary search on range of
r.
- Solved it using discrete binary search on range of
- You have a faulty keyboard with struck keys. You are given a
typedstring and atargetstring.typedmay have one or more repeating characters since the keyboard is faulty. We have to answer iftypedis a legal variation oftarget. Example:typed = "aabccaaad",target = "abcaad", returntrue- solved using 2 pointers + comparing count of chars
- Given a array
R3: HLD Round
- (20 mins) Intro + Leadership Principles
- (40 mins) Design an online auction system.
- requirements, entities, data-models, api-design, different scale out operations and design choices.
Although I was able to answer the questions, I felt the interviewer is very much fixated on looking for a specific design he had in mind. He was focusing on the wrong things for a HLD round.
Since Amazon interviews already use up 20-25mins for LPs, you are only left with ~35mins for HLD. It's better to jump to the final design instead of evolving it gradually.
R4: Bar Raiser
Bar raiser round was scheduled the next day.
- (20 mins) Intro + Leadership Principles + Work related questions
- (40 mins) Design LRU Cache
- Its expected to write a fully working code. We can assume that the doubly-linked-list structure is given. Just like LC.
This round went very well since I'm already aware of LRU cache implementation.
Next morning, I got a mail from my recruiter that I'm selected. The whole process took ~7 days
Interview Questions (5)
Design a Coffee Machine (LLD)
Design a Coffee machine. Full requirements weren't given. All the requirements were posed as follow-ups to see if the design was extensible to handle new requirements.
Minimum Solver Rate for Tasks
Given an array servers of n servers, servers[i]represents the number of tasks the i'th server has. You have a solver which can solve r tasks in an hour. You can use the solver on only one server at a time. Find the minimum r required to solve all tasks within K hours.
Faulty Keyboard (Legal Variation)
You have a faulty keyboard with struck keys. You are given a typed string and a target string. typed may have one or more repeating characters since the keyboard is faulty. We have to answer if typed is a legal variation of target. Example: typed = "aabccaaad", target = "abcaad", return true
Design an Online Auction System (HLD)
Design an online auction system. Discuss requirements, entities, data-models, API-design, different scale out operations and design choices.
Design LRU Cache (Coding)
Design LRU Cache. It's expected to write a fully working code. We can assume that the doubly-linked-list structure is given. Just like LC.
Preparation Tips
This round went very well since I'm already aware of LRU cache implementation.
Since Amazon interviews already use up 20-25mins for LPs, you are only left with ~35mins for HLD. It's better to jump to the final design instead of evolving it gradually.