I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Amazon (New York, NY) in Aug 2017
Interview
I had to sign an online NDA for the initial online coding test, so I cannot reveal the two specific questions that were asked on it. Answering only the first of the two questions correctly was sufficient for proceeding to the phone interview stage.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
What is a challenging technical problem that you faced and how did you face it?
Implement a function to return the symmetric difference of two sets. You can't use the builtin feature to return a symmetric difference, and must implement it manually. To explain, the returned set has elements from either input set but no elements that are in both sets.
Write a function to return the minimum number of squares whose sum equals to given positive integer. For example, for 17, the answer is 2 as it can be expressed as 1 + 16. For 12, it's not 4 due to 9 + 1 + 1 + 1; instead it is 3 due to 4 + 4 + 4.
total 5 rounds - First OA assessment, quick telephone interview with recruiter, followed by 4 back to back technical and behavioral rounds. In technical round question were around topological graph sorting, cycle detection in linked list, and LRU cache. In behavioral round, the question were based on their 16 principles.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do you manage the disagreement at your workplace.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Amazon
Interview
The process started with a brief 30-minute phone screening with a recruiter, focusing on my background and resume.
After that, I was invite to a technical video interview with a senior engineer. This round lasted about 60 minutes, starting with a brief introduction, followed by a live coding challenge on a shared editor, and ended with a few questions about system design basics and my past projects.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Implement a function to find the first non-repeating character in a string and discuss its time and space complexity.
During the coding round, I was thrown a problem on edit distance that felt eerily familiar. Mid-way through, I realized it was the same question I had practiced on PracHub just a few days earlier. The interview included a system design question about the Amazon Locker service, which required me to think through various components and customer flows. The final round involved behavioral questions that focused on leadership principles. Overall, the process was challenging but fair, and I was thrilled to receive an offer that I happily accepted.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Compute the edit distance between two strings and walk through the DP table and optimizations.
Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Amazon with 3.3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 48% positive. To compare, the company-average is 57.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 24 days to get hired, when considering 3,658 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Amazon overall takes an average of 28 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Amazon as a Software Engineer according to 3,658 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 30%
One on one interview: 18%
Skills test: 17%
Presentation: 10%
Personality test: 7%
Group panel interview: 6%
IQ intelligence test: 5%
Background check: 4%
Other: 2%
Drug test: 2%
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