My Interview Experience at Amazon [SDE-II USA] and Preparation Tips
As an international student, I was working full-time from 9 to 6 at a local company. Though I was considering a job change, I wasn’t actively applying for new positions. In April 2024, a recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn about a job opportunity at Amazon.
After scheduling a call with him, we had our initial discussion. One week later, the recruiter sent me a link to a coding platform to complete a coding round. This round required me to solve three coding questions within 2.5 hours: one easy and two medium-level problems. I managed to solve two of them but couldn’t pass all the test cases for the third.
One week later, the recruiter emailed me, inviting me to a technical phone interview. This 60-minute interview included both behavioral and technical questions.
Technical Phone Interview
The phone screening began with two behavioral questions, focusing on Amazon’s Leadership Principle of Customer Obsession. I was asked how I would go above and beyond for a customer, and this discussion took about 20 minutes. Then, we moved on to the coding round, where I was given a medium-level LeetCode question involving stacks. After some initial discussion, I successfully solved the problem using Livecode, a platform for writing code in real-time.
Five days later, the recruiter invited me to a final virtual interview. Although I initially considered asking for a month to prepare, I decided to schedule it for the following week due to my demanding 9-to-6 onsite job.
Final Virtual Interview
Round 1:
The interviewer started with two behavioral questions and followed up with clarifying questions to understand my problem-solving approach. We quickly bonded, and he then asked me to implement an LRU cache. After completing the implementation, he inquired about making it thread-safe. I provided a few ideas but couldn’t offer a complete solution.
Round 2:
The interviewer was about 7–8 minutes late. After starting with behavioral questions, he spent another 5–6 minutes before asking the coding question. I was tasked with implementing a method that takes a date and returns a movie name. Due to the incomplete nature of the question, I asked follow-up questions and discussed edge cases and the approach. However, with only 10 minutes left, I could barely start coding.
Round 3:
This interview was with a manager who asked two behavioral questions related to resolving conflicts with teammates or managers. He then presented a technical question that was not clearly defined, involving dynamic programming to distribute candies equally among children. I provided a solution, but the interview ended 15 minutes early without any follow-up questions.
Round 4:
The final round was a system design interview with another manager. After two behavioral questions, I was asked to design Dropbox, focusing on uploading and downloading files and videos. I followed the pattern from “Hello Interview” and felt that this round went really well, answering all his additional questions.
Outcome
Five days later, the recruiter called to inform me that Amazon would not be moving forward with my application. He mentioned that while I did well on the behavioral questions and coding rounds, my performance in the system design interview was lacking. This was surprising, as I felt the system design round had gone better than the others. When I asked for more feedback, the recruiter was unable to provide additional details.
The entire process, from the screening round to the final interview, took 1.5 months. I had to use a few of my PTO days for preparation and interviews. It was frustrating to be rejected without detailed feedback, but the Amazon recruiter was very supportive throughout the process, providing guidance and resources.
Overall, the experience was challenging yet insightful, and I gained valuable insights into Amazon’s interview process and expectations.
Here are some of the resources that I got from them as well as some that I found were really helpful.
For Behavior Round
When preparing for an Amazon interview, it’s crucial to understand that their Leadership Principles are at the core of the process. The interview will include 2–3 non-technical, behavioral, or situational questions based on these principles. This part of the interview is as important as the technical portion, so thorough preparation is key.
Key Leadership Principles to Focus On
Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles form the basis of the behavioral interview questions. Common principles you should be ready to discuss include:
- Deliver Results
- Earn Trust
- Invent and Simplify
- Learn and Be Curious
- Ownership
- Insist on the Highest Standards
- Dive Deep
- Bias for Action
Frame your answers using the STAR method to provide structured and comprehensive responses:
- Situation: Describe the context and background of the scenario.
- Task: Explain the task you needed to accomplish, noting any challenges or constraints.
- Action: Detail the specific actions you took, highlighting your contributions.
- Result: Share the outcome of your actions, emphasizing your role in achieving it.
Make sure to use “I” instead of “We” to clearly convey your individual contributions and impact.
Prepare 2–3 examples of times when you excelled in your role and 1–2 examples of when you faced failure. Discussing failures can be tough, but it shows how you’ve grown and learned from those experiences.
For more detailed guidance and resources, check out TheBalanceCareer.com and InterviewGenie.com.
By familiarizing yourself with these principles and reflecting on relevant past experiences, you’ll be well-prepared to demonstrate how your background aligns with Amazon’s values.
For coding round
In addition to behavioral questions, Amazon’s technical interviews are designed to assess your coding ability, problem-solving skills, computer science fundamentals, and mobile engineering capabilities. Here’s how you can prepare effectively:
Key Areas of Assessment
- Coding Ability: Proficiency in languages like Java, Objective C, Swift, C#, and familiarity with libraries and rendering technologies.
- Problem-Solving Skills: Ability to tackle and solve complex technical problems.
- Computer Science Fundamentals: Strong grasp of data structures, algorithms, and Big-O concepts.
- Mobile Engineering Skills: Knowledge of mobile development technologies.
You’ll solve coding problems on a collaborative code-editing platform similar to CollabEdit, allowing real-time interaction with the interviewer. To prepare:
- Big-O Concepts: Understand how to evaluate and improve the efficiency of your solutions.
- Data Structures: Be comfortable with arrays (2D/3D), linked lists, hash tables, stacks, queues, heaps, and binary trees. Know the mechanics behind these structures.
- Object-Oriented Design: Break down problems into objects that interact to form a cohesive solution.
- Sorting and Searching: Learn efficient algorithms for different types of searches.
- Trees and Graphs: Study binary trees, red-black trees, N-ary trees, tree traversals, and graph traversal methods.
- Recursion: Be proficient in solving problems using recursion.
Interviewers will also evaluate:
- Coding Style: Ensure your code is clean and well-structured.
- Understanding of OOP Principles: Demonstrate a solid grasp of object-oriented programming and design.
- Software Engineering Best Practices: Follow best practices in your code.
- Communication: If you take shortcuts or write suboptimal code due to time constraints, explain this to the interviewer.
By focusing on these areas and utilizing these resources, you’ll be well-prepared to tackle Amazon’s technical interview challenges.
System Design
For this round, I recommend starting with “System Design Interview: An Insider’s Guide” by Alex Xu. This book provides a solid foundation on various system design topics. Afterward, you can deepen your understanding by watching system design videos from Hello Interview.
Thank you for taking the time to read.
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