1 Coding Test - 1 section with 2 DSA questions and 3 sections with behavioral and leadership based questions.
4 Interviews
Machine Coding Round - LLD question on coding a system
DSA round - 1 medium level question
HM round - HLD question
Bar Raiser Round - Questions on previous projects and 1 DSA question
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Design and a code a chess game application.
2.Given 2-D matrix of characters and a dictionary of string S. You can start at any cell in the matrix and end at any cell and you can move in all the 8 directions from a cell. Find the strings that you can construct from the matrix, which are present in the dictionary.
3. HLD - Design a stock ticker
4. Given a tree and two nodes, check if the two nodes lie in the same path from the root to a leaf.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Jan 2022
Interview
1. Resume selection and phone call by HR asking a few basic questions about experience and work done so far.
2. The next step is the HackerRank online test. I think it was 2 hours or more as it had several types of questions. It started with 2 coding questions with medium difficulty with a time of about 90 minutes. Next, a series of System Design related multiple-choice questions. Next, a series of behavioral questions, followed by a series of questions that asks about your preferences in day-to-day work.
3. If you score well in the automated test, they will let you know in the next 2 days, but if the automated score calculation did not go well, the HackerRank test seems to have a smart algorithm that detects that the candidate might have had good answers despite the computed score was low and suggests "Manual Intervention". Seeing this they assign people to manually evaluate. If you fall under this category, it could taken even 10-15 days to know the result. Always remember, they will not simply abandon you if you are not selected. You will definitely receive a response one way or the other. You may want to send a reminder or two to the HR if there is a delay.
4. The next 2 rounds are back-back (on the same day or on consecutive days based on your choice). Even if you do one round poorly, you will still have the second round as the result is calculated cumulatively. One good thing is, well ahead of the interview, they will give you preparation material and the names of the interviewers. You can also ask for time for preparation like even 1 or 2 months and they are happy to provide.
5. One is the coding round where an interviewer will give you a problem statement and you have to write code on a shared live code environment. Remember, this is similar to notepad, so better get used to such env outside any IDE. It is okay to make one or two syntax mistakes. Be vocal of your thought process. This is the most important aspect of the round; the interviewer wants to know what your thought process is.
6. The next is System Design round, and the interviewer (another person usually) will give you a scenario and you have to again talk about the problem statement, calculations, design choices and trade offs. Remember, there is no perfect solution.
7. In both these 2 rounds (5 & 6) you will also be asked questions about situations you have faced to evaluate on the basis of Amazon Leadership Principles, so be prepared for these as well. Create stories for various scenarios based on your work experience.
8. If you do well in these 2 rounds you will then have to attend a Hiring Manger round and a Senior Manager round (aka, bar-raiser round). Unfortunately, I did not make it to these rounds although I thought I did pretty well in the previous rounds.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. What was your most satisfying work in your career so far?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Los Angeles, CA) in Mar 2021
Interview
Overall smooth interview process
1 tech screen interview
For on-site:
5 technical interviews and 1 behavioral interview
Feedback was quick and recruiter reached out the very next week. Overall the interview format was pretty standard.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Leetcode medium difficulty questions
Behavioral questions in each round