The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Jan 2012
Interview
Their interview process consists of two phone interviews and an in-house interview that consists of 4-7 45 minute-1 hour interviews.
For my first phone interview, the interviewer was very friendly and prompt. He called on time, explained the process and got right into the questions. For my 2nd phone interview, the guy calling me was a last minute replacement, and it showed. He was about 10 minutes late to call, sounded like he wasn't prepared and generally didn't care about the interview. I was lucky that I made it past that call... Both interviewers allowed me to ask questions for about 5 or 10 minutes after the technical questions they had.
The in house interview began at 11 and lasted until about 4:30, shorter than I was expecting. Everyone was very friendly and I really didn't feel intimidated at all. It went very well, but I didn't receive an offer.
The biggest downside to Amazon's interview process is that they don't give you feedback on why you don't receive an offer. I thought I had a very good interview, but didn't get an offer.
From what I have heard, they have a 1-2 year span after "failing" an interview that you cannot apply again to Amazon, but I was told that the result of my interview didn't prohibit me from applying to other positions. I wasn't sure how to read into that (and the recruiter was not helpful with that).
Interview questions [5]
Question 1
Phone interview 1:
1. Describe what a hash map/table is. Later evolved into how to deal with collisions.
2. Write the code to take an int array and return a new int array whose value at i is the product of all values in the input array except the value at i.
Phone Interview 2:
1. Count the number of words in a sentence.
After more definition, the problem evolved into:
Code a function that will take a String and return the number of words (continuous sequences of non white-space characters).
2. How would you model a restaurant reservation system?
In-House interview:
1. Given two int arrays, return a third int array that contains all values in the first int array that aren't in the 2nd. If a value is duplicated in the first int array, only return it once in the output array.
2. Model a deck of cards
In-house Interview
1. Write a program to print all combinations of ascending numbers that equal an input number.
2. Given a million points on a graph, return the 100 closest to the origin
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.
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,
