Amazon Interview Experience for SDE-1 – Part II

By Kiara

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Hi All,
Hope you all are doing great.

I’ll be talking about my Amazon Interview Experience for SDE-1 today.
This is in continuation to the previous blog where I talked about the online assessment round.

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Informative Session (Post-OA)

A couple of days after taking the online assessment, I got an email for attending an informative session on the same day.
The mail just had an invite for the session.

This was not a one-on-one call — there were other candidates as well.
It was an informative call where HR explained the whole process.
She also shared links for practicing for the interview.

There are 3 virtual interview rounds. I’ll explain each in brief:

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Round 1: Algorithms & Data Structures

This round was taken by an SDE-2.

• After a short intro, he asked which data structure I’m more comfortable with.
• Then gave two problems to solve:
  1. Check for pairs in an array that sum up to 0
  2. Find anagrams in an array of strings

🧠 He asked me to think out loud and discuss the solution before typing.
We discussed and tested all edge cases, and went over time and space complexity.
Ended the interview with a short QnA.

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Round 2: Hiring Manager (HM) Round

This was taken by an SDM-3 (same team as the role — Amazon Pay).

• He was 15 minutes late and sounded a bit rushed.

• Didn’t let me finish my intro:

  “Okay yeah I got the idea, we should move forward now with problem-solving.”

⚠️ The HR mail had mentioned this would be a behavioral round, but he didn’t ask any such questions.

He asked two coding questions:

1. Print top view of binary tree
   View on GeeksforGeeks
2. Reverse a linked list
   View on GeeksforGeeks

❌ I couldn’t answer the first one
✅ But I completed the second quickly

After a quick Q&A, he ended the call.

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Round 3: Problem Solving, CS Fundamentals & Coding

This round was taken by another SDE-2, who was quite friendly.

• He introduced himself and asked me to do the same.
• Then he gave me two questions:

1. String alteration comparison

   Take two strings as input and check how many alterations are done to make them same.
   Alterations can be: insert, remove, or replace.

2. Balanced Parentheses Check
   View on GeeksforGeeks

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Final Thoughts

That was pretty much it.

As much as I’m disappointed about not making it, I’m also happy that I now know what the interview process is like for such a huge product-based company.

If you have any queries, feel free to post them in the comment section.
Also, feel free to drop some feedback 🙂

xx
Kiara