Interview Experience / Interviews

Amazon SDE Interview Experience: Set 17

Company Name: Amazon 

Designation: SDE1 

Experience: 1.5 years 

Preparation for Amazon

Topics: Data Structures and Algorithms

Duration: 6 months

Source of Preparation: Leetcode, GFG, Striver’s SDE sheet.

  • Blind 75 Leetcode

    • Amazon Interview Rounds

    Round 1 

    Online Coding Test where 2 Coding Questions were asked. I don’t precisely remember the exact question, but one was a DP problem, and the other one was based on palindrome Substrings. 

    After clearing the OA, 3 eliminatory rounds were scheduled. Out of the two were DSA based and one was a Bar raiser round. 

    Round 2: (Technical Interview) 

    I was asked questions on Linked List. 

    1. Clone a single Linked List (with code of course) 
    2. The same question was modified, clone a Linked List with next and random pointer. The interviewer was not satisfied with O(3N) solution and had to optimize till O(N). Code for O(3N) was accepted. 

    Round 3: (Technical Interview) 

    In this round 2 DSA questions were asked. The most acceptable way of answering is Brute, followed by an optimized approach with code. 

    1. Zig zag traversal of the binary tree. 
    2. In a room, there are N people. It is possible that a person A knows no one whereas everyone knows A OR A knows B but B doesn’t know OR A and B both don’t know each other. Find one such person Y from this room who knows no one but everyone knows him. (Hint: use brute way first for optimal approach use Graph concept) 

    Round 4 : (Bar Raiser) 

    This round is basically scheduled to test your communication skills and to understand your capability in adverse situations that you might have faced in your previous organization. Out of all the questions asked I am listing a few questions for better understanding : 

    1. Have you been ever put into a situation where you and to make an important decision without asking or consulting your manager/TL? 
    2. How to handle extreme work pressure? 
    3. Have you felt demotivated? How did you overcome it? 
    4. What kind of work you have done in your previous organization? 
    5. Have you handled or taken ownership of a task completely? 

    These questions seem to be very easy but when the interviewer cross-questions you after you answer, that becomes difficult if you frame your answers. So be very straight and stick to what you have done. Don’t frame or make up answers of your own. 

    After a discussion of around 50 mins on the above topics, I was given 1 DSA question in this round as well for which I had to find the solution and code within 10 mins. ( DSA for the round completely depends on your interviewer. 

    Verdict: Selected. 

    Tips: Think out loud, just say what comes to your mind. Prepare the SDE sheet well. It’s a masterpiece, I tell you! All the best.