Amazon | SDE 1 | Recent Interview Experiences | 2026 | Set-61

Question

Amazon SDE intern Interview Experiences

Apr 15, 2026

Had my first SDE Intern interview experience with Amazon — and wow, what an amazing experience.

 

Round 1 (DSA)

Started strong with Search in Rotated Sorted Array. Then came a chain of follow-ups:

 

What if there are duplicates?

Find the smallest element

Count how many times the array is rotated

Walked through everything from brute force to optimized (binary search).

 

Second question was Remove K Digits.

 

Discussed brute force

Explored queue and heap-based ideas

Finally landed on the optimal monotonic stack approach

This round went really smooth — probably my best DSA discussion so far.

 

Round 2 (Advanced DSA)

Only one question — but a tough one:

 

Minimizing Tree Diameter with Path Rewiring (CodeForces 2131D)

 

Initially went in the wrong direction (thought of DSU )

The interviewer nudged me toward thinking about leaf nodes

Things started to click after that

Spent ~30 minutes discussing the approach and then moved to coding.

 

I did manage to solve it, but honestly — I panicked a bit.

There were moments where I went blank and struggled to clearly communicate my thoughts.

 

Honest Reflection

Round 1 felt like butter

Round 2 humbled me

And honestly, I’m grateful for that

Key Takeaways

Staying calm matters as much as knowing the solution

Communication is as important as logic

It’s okay to struggle — what matters is how you recover

Whether I get selected or not, I’m walking away with growth, clarity, and a lot more hunger to improve.