I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Dec 2012
Interview
I applied to amazon months before until they actually contacted me. Im assuming they do seasonal recruiting since i applied near the summer into fall and i get contacted in the winter.
I had 2 phone interviews. Both interviewers were very nice and helped when they thought it was necessary in order for you to succeed. The first phone interview was not difficult if you read all the questions on glassdoor that people posted and read the cracking interview book that somone did suggest in the intervews tab list. The book was extremely helpful. the second interview was majority coding questions and at the end of each coding question the interviewer would ask time complexities. After I ended the phone interview i thought to myself i made like 4 mistakes answering the first question and knew i was doomed from that point on. I received the generic rejection letter one week after the second phone interview.
the interview process for me lasted roughly a month because i interviewed right before the christmas vacation
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
first interview had like 5 or 6 short questions followed by a coding question which was
sum of 2 numbers within one array adds up to a target number which you have as a parameter fairly easy question if you read all the interviews questions on glassdoor.
second phone interview had 2 questions
the first one was a find the kth node in a linkedlist and the second was to check a string for "(" and ")" and there are only so many combinations that are considered valid and invalid. Valid is if all the "(" have an ending ")" for example , (( )) or ()()
Invalid would be )()( or ((()
if the string starts with ) its automatically invalid.
second interviewer asked time complexities on both of the question.
Great interview process with three rounds, including a technical assessment and a technical interview. The interviewers were professional and supportive throughout the process. The questions mainly focused on DSA, problem-solving, and core technical concepts. The discussions were engaging and provided a good opportunity to demonstrate technical skills. Overall, the process was well-structured, smooth, transparent, and a very positive experience.
I applied through college or university. I interviewed at Amazon (Dublin, Dublin)
Interview
Online techincal assessment. Had to screen share and complete basic coding tasks similar to Leet Code. Could choose a language of your choice. Overall a very fair system and judged based on merit.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Technical assessment so a basic leet code style question about reversing the orders of long numerical strings.
Loop — 4 rounds, all on the same day
Round 1 — Coding (DSA)
Interviewer was a senior SDE, very friendly.
Warm-up + behavioral: "Tell me about a time you took ownership of something outside your responsibilities."
Main question: Given a list of meeting intervals, find the minimum number of conference rooms required. I used a heap. He then asked a follow-up: what if meetings could be reassigned to minimize total idle time? We discussed approaches but didn't fully code it.
He cared a lot about how I talked through edge cases out loud.
Round 2 — Coding + Problem Solving
LP question: "Describe a situation where you disagreed with a teammate."
Coding: LRU Cache implementation from scratch. I used a hashmap + doubly linked list. He pushed on thread-safety and what happens at capacity 0.
Round 3 — Behavioral (Bar Raiser)
This was the toughest round — no coding, all Leadership Principles, very deep STAR-format probing.
Questions I got:
"Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned."
"A time you had to deliver something with a tight deadline and limited information."
The bar raiser kept drilling: "What was your specific contribution?" "What would you do differently?" "What data did you use?" Have 6–8 strong stories ready with metrics.
Round 4 — Low-Level Design
Design: Design a parking lot system (classes, vehicle types, spot allocation, pricing). Then he asked me to code the findSpot() and releaseSpot() methods.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Most coding questions were LeetCode Medium. Common themes: graphs, heaps, sliding window, hashmaps, and LRU/design., system design,
