I applied online. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2012
Interview
Applied online and also submitted resume through a job fair. At the fair, I was asked to write a simple program along with simple questions like past projects, interests and experience.
I was called for on-site interview event that consisted of approximately 30 recent graduate students. The on-site interview consisted of 4 1:1 interviews. The interview covered OOP concepts, algorithmic and data structure questions about graphs, linked lists, etc. The difficulty level was quite high, though I felt I knew some variation of the questions asked. There were no terrible surprises. Two of the four interviewers were not even interested in my name. They walked in and started asking me questions directly.
I asked my last interviewer about "Amazon" culture, he was hesitant to directly answer it. I don't know why he did that. He started telling me the company principles and goals.
It was good experience for me and they paid for the tickets and stay at Seattle, So, I was happy with the overall process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is an abstract class? Why is composition better than inheritance?
Difference between abstract class and interface? When would you use interface over abstract class?
Loop — 4 rounds, all on the same day
Round 1 — Coding (DSA)
Interviewer was a senior SDE, very friendly.
Warm-up + behavioral: "Tell me about a time you took ownership of something outside your responsibilities."
Main question: Given a list of meeting intervals, find the minimum number of conference rooms required. I used a heap. He then asked a follow-up: what if meetings could be reassigned to minimize total idle time? We discussed approaches but didn't fully code it.
He cared a lot about how I talked through edge cases out loud.
Round 2 — Coding + Problem Solving
LP question: "Describe a situation where you disagreed with a teammate."
Coding: LRU Cache implementation from scratch. I used a hashmap + doubly linked list. He pushed on thread-safety and what happens at capacity 0.
Round 3 — Behavioral (Bar Raiser)
This was the toughest round — no coding, all Leadership Principles, very deep STAR-format probing.
Questions I got:
"Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned."
"A time you had to deliver something with a tight deadline and limited information."
The bar raiser kept drilling: "What was your specific contribution?" "What would you do differently?" "What data did you use?" Have 6–8 strong stories ready with metrics.
Round 4 — Low-Level Design
Design: Design a parking lot system (classes, vehicle types, spot allocation, pricing). Then he asked me to code the findSpot() and releaseSpot() methods.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Most coding questions were LeetCode Medium. Common themes: graphs, heaps, sliding window, hashmaps, and LRU/design., system design,
Great interview process with three rounds, including a technical assessment and a technical interview. The interviewers were professional and supportive throughout the process. The questions mainly focused on DSA, problem-solving, and core technical concepts. The discussions were engaging and provided a good opportunity to demonstrate technical skills. Overall, the process was well-structured, smooth, transparent, and a very positive experience.
I applied through college or university. I interviewed at Amazon (Dublin, Dublin)
Interview
Online techincal assessment. Had to screen share and complete basic coding tasks similar to Leet Code. Could choose a language of your choice. Overall a very fair system and judged based on merit.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Technical assessment so a basic leet code style question about reversing the orders of long numerical strings.
