Background: 2021 Passout from Tier3 College (ECE Branch).
Working Experience: 1.3 YOE in a Service Based Company (not WITCH but similar).
Note: I am going to share some Important lessons & thoughts that I have gathered over past 1 Year of Working. Also I have Signed a NDA so won't be revealing the Exact Questions.
The process was laid out in the following Manner:
- Online Assesment
- Round 1 (DSA)
- Round 2 (LLD)
- Round 3 (DSA)
- Round 4 (DSA)
I had applied to an Opening at Amazon Prime Video through their Careers Page back in the 1st week of August. Got a Response after a week for the Online Assesment with a Weeks Deadline.
Online Assesment: Got 2 Questions. Both of these have been Shared by some people here already in the Interview Questions section. I also had to explain my Approach in a Separate section for each Question with Time Complexity & Space Complexity.
The 1st Question was related to Covering some Intervals over an Array. The 1st Approach was kinf of a Brute Force which covered 11/15 TC but couldn't optimise it.
The 2nd Question is there Exactly on Leetcode which was a Medium DP Problem. This was a Contest problem some 4-5 months back. Solved this optimally.
Following this there were a bunch of Work Style assesment questions which were not Time Bound.
After my OA, 2 Days later got the Mail from the Recruiter that they'll be moving over to Onsites. I had to pick my Dates for Onsites & Intially took 3 Weeks of Time. All my 4 Interviews were Supposed to be Scheduled in 1 Day. Took some dates but after a week got to know that my Onsites were Pushed further Ahead by 3 weeks in the Last week of September.
It also happened that I got Sick for a Week which resulted in Bed Rest. I had Initially scheduled my Onsites for this Week.
Now comes the Time for the Onsites: All My Interviews were Scheduled all in 1 Day with a gap of 30 mins. As for my Prep, I have solved a Vast number of Questions & honestly this rejection did took me back Questioning all my Hardwork over the Couse of the Entire Year since Last December.
Round 1:
The Interviewer was an SDE2 at Amazon. We started off with some Introduction followed up by 30 Mins of Grilling on Leadership Principles. At each of my Amazon Interviews, the Interviewers covered 2 Leadership principles with 1 Question each for each LP. This went well but after every interview I felt that I didn't really had much data Points because of my Lack of Exposure to Technical Work in my current Company (had more Support work rather than Coding there).
Now the Interviewer came up with the Coding Question. A really standard Tree Question which is there everywhere. Gave up the Initial Solution but Time ran up for covering the followup. I felt this round well went except the Time for covering followup cases. I had been speaking my Brain Literally Throughout the Entire time while Explaining & even Coding up. Asked her questions at the end related to Work at Prime Video & others.
Round 2:
This was a LLD Interview with an Engineering Manager at Amazon Prime Video. Started off with Introduction as well as LPs just as above for next 30 Mins. LPs again went well but I had to bring up some of my Scenarios from My Engineering Coursework (as I have explained above).
Following this got the Question. This was a Simple Question based on a real Life Scenario (Not a Usual LLD problem that you'd find). We started off with discussing how I'd approach with defining different classes & Data Members. Communication was constant from my end in every Round & there was also some back & forth discussion on some of my Choices in Design. Overall this went well but what really bogged me was the Time consumed Over LPs which resulted in less time at the end.
For LLD I had followed the Refactoring Guru site with some LLD Playlists on Youtube.
Round 3:
Now this round was where I believed I gave my best shot at Coding but got taken back from the LPs.
The Interviewer was a SDE2. This also started with Some LPs but I got challenged her pretty bad. Still managed to deliver my Best. Following the LPs got a Standard Graph Problem which is famously asked at Amazon.
Explained my Approach with all Tradeoffs & explained the Time & Space Complexity well. Asked the Interviewer some Questions at the end. This was a Solid round but also by this Time it started taking Mental Toll because all these rounds were back to back with 30 mins Span In between.
Round 4:
By this time really Fatigued Mentally but the Interviewer was considerate about the Entire Scheduled. Started off with LPs again but this time the LPs Covered within 25 mins so The Interviewer asked if I can Share some more Points related to any other Technical work that I had done which wasn't covered. Explained a Project that I had worked which was based on Neural Networks & NLP which I had built in my Final Year of Engineering & also discussed about some of my Side Projects that I had created aside from my LC Grind all these Months.
Now comes the Coding Question based on Trees again. I believed this was the Dealbreaker for my result because I initially came up with an Approach which involved converting it into a Graph & then work around finding a solution. He wanted to come up with a Different Solution so tried Various DFS Approaches. Almost got there but didn't covered because of the Time Crunch. It was night 10:30 by this Time & really Mentally Drained out. Still kept going.
At the end I had asked the Interviewer some Questions based on his Experience & expertise.
Got the Result through a Chime call from the Recruiter a week after that I didn't made it through. As per the short feedback, I didn't raised the Bar & there were some Gaps in my Technical abilities during my Interviews.
This was really a kindof dealbreaker because I didn't Thought that I left any Loopholes while explaining my Approaches in all 4 Interviews. Nontheless, will take it as a Positive Experience from here.
One of the biggest reasons for my Job switch motivation was because I was working mostly in Tech Support (not by my will but because I didn't got the Opportunities at my Current company) & really didn't wanted my Coding skills to vanish off henceforth.
Some Important Lessons that I'd like to share from my Prep:
- I have been doing DSA for past 10-11 Months & covered a huge chunk of Problems from all Categories including Dynamic Programming, Graphs & Trees. I had followed a Structured Approach like this: Arrays -> Linked Lists -> Stacks/Queues -> Two Pointers/Sliding Window/Hashmap all at once -> Binary Search on Index bound questions -> Trees -> Graphs & yes Dynamic Programming all along the way with other categories. Also covered Tries as well.
- Since I had negligible Development Experience at my Current Organisation, I had Picked MERN Stack as my Primary goal to develop some Development skills. Built some projects alongside my prep & also decided to brush up my Javascript skills. Also did some LLD nearing my Onsite Interviews.
- Now the Time is indeed a Critical time for Searching jobs, especially in India as well because of a lot of Buzz revolving around layoffs. I'd suggest to other folks who are kind of in a Similar Situation as me to keep Brushing up your Skills & don't miss on any chances for Learning as you go. I was surrounded with a Non technical Coding Enviornment which involved people not having much Interests in Software Engineering & Programming at all. Even the Enviornment in my Current organisation didn't gave me much exposure but I still kept pursuing even during my Engineering. Did unpaid Internships in between Semester Gaps because we didn't got much opportunities as well as not many Motivated folks were around me.
- Rejection is certain & indeed a Part of life. I have been rejected left & right in resume screening even in Startups due to my lack of Exposure to Development in Professional world. Didn't heard back from other Product based companies as well. Well this hasn't broke off me but maybe someday I'll get over the line.
- From my Amazon onsites, one really Important lesson that I have learned is to Learn how you Document your Work so that a Newbie can also understand what you have done/accomplished. It's really important to speak & be a Critical Thinker. Also while you are Grinding Leetcode in your Afterhours, please don't missout on Development Skills and/or other Domain Skills whcih suits to your Interests.
This was an Unusual Long post but hope this may help out other people before their Interviews.
Thanks & Prepare well to fulfill your End goal.