Surprisingly easy — I expected tougher questions, but the coding round felt more like a warm-up. The main challenge was a DSA problem about counting islands in a 2D grid, which led to a discussion on DFS versus BFS and handling large grids. Funny enough, I had revisited that exact type of question while prepping on PracHub, which made me feel more confident. The interview wrapped up with a behavioral round, and I accepted an offer, but ultimately decided to decline it for another opportunity. Overall, it was a smooth experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Number of Islands — given a 2D grid of '1's (land) and '0's (water), count the number of connected islands. Walk through DFS vs BFS, and discuss how to avoid revisiting cells (in-place mutation vs visited set) and what changes if the grid is huge and must stream from disk.
I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Jan 2014
Interview
It was one of their non-traditional group interview processes that they have started doing.
Arrived at 8 in the morning and was given a tour. They did say that more people who go on the tours get offers than those who don't, however they did also say that they don't take it in to account. Anyways, we were shown around a couple buildings and then returned to where we would be for the rest of the day.
We were put in to groups of 3 and given a problem to solve. The problem could be divided amongst each person so everyone had something to work on. Then at times throughout the day we spoke with Amazon engineers about our solution and then some more traditional coding interview questions.
All in all it was quite difficult but I did actually end up enjoying this experience more. It gave you an idea of what it was like to work at Amazon and also it was easier to relax with other team members with you.
Amazon is highering a ton so they did say that it wouldn't be a competition and that everyone would be evaluated separated from one another.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
As per NDA I cannot share specifics, but just think about what an Amazon engineer would have to solve on a daily basis.
It started with an OA, and then after a few weeks, I got invited to four rounds of interviews: technical and behavioral at 3 of the 4, and behavioral only at one.
Um teste de código online, se aprovado, vai para o loop. O loop é 4 entrevistas seguidas, duas em inglês e duas em português. 3 entrevistas técnicas de código, todas as 4 têm pergunta de liderança.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Pergunta historicas baseada nos principios de lideranca da amazon.