Hi All, Hope you are doing well.
Leetcode community helped me a lot in my preperations and as I have went through the process now, I just wanted to give it back to the community by sharing my experience and learning from the process.
I applied to the Amazon Summer Intern 2023 SDE position.
Date Applied: 7/25/2022
On 8/9/22 I received the Online Assessment Invitation, which I need to finish in 15 days. I took some time to prepare and gave the OA.
Oline Assesment:
So, the OA consisted of 2 coding questions, 15 min Behavioural question round and 5 minute survey in the end. The coding questions were leetcode style, one I would say as easy and the 2nd one was a bit tricky medium style question.
The behavioural round had questions based on the Amazon LP's and I just answered it based on the situation, just answered it honestly.
Within 2 days I got the invitation mail for the final virtual interview asking me to fill the survey. I selected my availability and submitted it. It took me a week to hear back from them. I got the iterview schedule mail just before 2 days of my final interview.
Final Interview:
I had my interview in first week of september, and the interview went like this:
He first told me what to expect from this interview and started with his introduction followed by mine. Then he asked me some questions pertaining to my resume and experience listed on it.
Then he asked me the LP(Leadership Principles) question "You see your co-worker struggling with a task, what would you do?"
I gave the example from one of my past experiences and he asked some follow-up questions on it. Make sure that you frame scenarios and be prepared for the follow-up questions.(Try to build a relevent scenario). By this time we were already done with 25 mins..
Then he asked me login to the live coding platform and gave the question, the question was not that tough but there were so many questions on why to use particular data strcuture, why not the other one, etc.
The question was based on the concept of prefix sum.
I gave my approach and explained it to the interviewer, wrote some test cases and asked about all the edge cases, he looked satisfied and asked me to code it, and I did it.(make sure you dry run your appraoch for the given test-case)
Then I explained about how I can optimize it further and explained that approach as well.(To my surprise, he didn't ask me to code it)
Also, the interview time was for 45 mins but the interviewer stayed in the call for mor than 15 min of the allocated time, so that was a positive for me.
After 2 weeks from the interview, my portal status changed to "Moved to another job" and I ccould see the location as Austin now.
The very next day I got the offer letter.
These are somethings that I followed:
Don't just prepare yourself for coding, prepare for behavioural as well. I have seen may people completing the code very well but messing up the first part.
Big companies like Amazon emphasize a lot on their Leadership Principles, make sure you are aware about each one of them and try to frame your answer including the LP's with the STAR method.
Just frame your scenarios well and do not mug up the answers prior to the interview. Be natural, be yourself.
Keep grinding the leetcode, also have good understanding of the basic Data Structures.
I had the leetcode premium, so the day I got the OA, I started preparing all the recently asked question and till the time of my interview I pretty much have coverd all the important concepts/questions.
Get a good rest the day before your interview, it's important to keep your calm.
Good luck on your preperations. You've got this.
Thank-you.