Software Development Engineer I Amazon Interview
Summary
I went through multiple interview rounds for an SDE I role at Amazon, including an online assessment, several DSA and system‑design questions, and behavioral interviews, but was ultimately not selected.
Full Experience
Online Assessment March
I completed the OA in March and received a scheduling email in June. There were multiple interview rounds with about an hour between the first and second rounds.
Round 1
Two interviewers asked me to introduce myself and then presented two DSA questions.
DSA Question 1
The first problem involved a priority queue combined with a greedy approach. I explained my reasoning, coded the solution, and discussed time/space complexity and a dry‑run example.
DSA Question 2
The second problem was: given a list of names, return the name with the maximum count. I used a hash map and a priority queue, then explained the complexity and performed a dry‑run.
Behavioral
I answered a question about meeting a difficult deadline, discussed several follow‑up queries, and talked about one of my projects and the technical decisions I made.
Round 2
The interview started with a Leadership Principle question about going beyond normal responsibilities, followed by a system‑design/OOP style problem.
LLD / OOP Question
I was asked to design a system that allows a user to deposit money, credit money, generate a summary, support future functionality, and apply tax. I described the classes and objects and how the design could be extended.
Round 3 – GenAI + DSA
The third round focused on generative AI and a DSA problem. After discussing my GenAI project and answering questions about hallucinations, verification, model choice, security, and prompt engineering, I was given a DSA problem.
DSA – Currency Conversion
The task was to find the conversion rate from a source currency to a destination currency given a table of conversion rates (e.g., 1 USD = 100 INR). I modeled the currencies as a graph and used DFS to locate the conversion path, then explained the time complexity and performed a dry‑run.
Final Round
The final round consisted of three parts: a deep‑dive problem‑solving question about race conditions in a distributed database, a discussion of the most complex problem I have solved, and a behavioral question about receiving negative feedback. The conversation went deep into concurrency, scalability, and system behavior under load.
Result
Two weeks after the final interview, the portal was updated to “No longer under consideration.”
Interview Questions (3)
Find Name with Maximum Occurrence
Given a collection of names, return the name that appears the most times.
Example: Input: ["Alice", "Bob", "Alice", "Charlie", "Bob", "Bob"] Output: "Bob" (appears three times).
Currency Conversion Rate Using Graph
Given conversion rates between various currencies (e.g., 1 USD = 100 INR) stored in a table, compute the conversion rate from a source currency to a destination currency.
Model the currencies as nodes in a graph where edges represent direct conversion rates. Find a path from the source to the destination and multiply the edge weights to obtain the overall conversion rate.
Design Simple Banking System
Design a system that supports the following operations for a user:
- Deposit money
- Credit money
- Generate a summary of transactions
- Apply tax to operations
- Allow for future extensions (e.g., new transaction types)
The design should be modular and easily extensible.