Amazon.com Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
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Updated Feb 14, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 222 ratings 
“Difficult” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 222 ratings
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See who your friends know who've worked at Amazon.com and could give you an inside look.
See who your friends know who've worked at Amazon.com and could help you prep for an interview.
| 11–20 of 221 Amazon.com Interviews | Sort by |
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 21, 2012
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2011 in Seattle, WA (took a day)
Applied online and got call immediately after 5 days. Given 2 date to choose for an onsite interview in Seattle. They took care of almost everything travel-stay-food. I had 15 days to prepare for interview.
The day started with lunch at start then 4 interview one by one continuously by different people, I was bit impressed by all. They all started with inquiring about my work experience, why amazon, most interesting or recent projects, etc.
Interview tech. questions were not hard to understand but requires lot of thinking and to come up with best solution in terms of space-time complexities, they more concentrated on using best suited data structure for given problem and algorithm to solve it. Also, they check if you considered all cases. They keep on noting everything you say and things you write on board. Less time and detailed thinking of problem is a big pain, you have to stress your brain for next 4 hours nonstop.
I was able to answer all tech questions with best solution and they were all very impressed by my solutions, it showed on their face, I met there expectations, but I m sure I messed up Object-oriented question, I was bit disappointed for solution I gave, when I thought about it after coming at hotel, I come with composite design pattern that best suited and was expected. I didn't at all think about any design pattern for object oriented question, I m sure this was the point where I was out.
My advice before going for interview is to go through 2 books: programming interviews exposed and cracking the coding interviews.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 21, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 2 weeks)
Phone interviewed 2 times.. and both of the interviewers were very very sluggish in English. It was hard to understand why they were saying, and I lost phone connection several times during the interview. Interviewers does not seem to speak English very well, and their accents were not from any one of states. Questions were not easy, and you can easily feel that they want to hire the ones who can show exceptional performance in coding.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 19, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 2+ weeks)
Interview process was standard. Had 4, 1 on 1 on-site interviews. Thought I did fairly well but according to sources you have to ace their hardest question (they have a name for it but I don't remember it now). I stumbled on one of the harder questions but thought I did well overall.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 17, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 2 weeks)
I was contacted by an Amazon recruiter for a position that would involving refactoring existing code from C/C++ to Java and other technologies for internal use as well as tools for customer (seller) use. The technical interview was challenging but nothing a competent software engineer shouldn't be at least familiar with. Big O notation, data structures (specifically trees, binary trees, and tree searching algorithms) are a must to confidently proceed.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 17, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 (took 1 week)
First got interest by applying in person during a career fair and handing one of their employees a resume and talking to them briefly. I was given a pre-screen question, sometimes it's hit or miss, but they're generally quick questions you can reason out quickly if you've been prepping for interviews in general. They usually ask for a bit of code on paper or a algorithm/data structures question verbally when you hand them your resume, then a 1:1 interview or phone screen. Didn't get further than that. Afterwards, if you pass the first round, it's final round interviews on their campus.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 16, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2012 (took 1 week)
I had two interviews back to back in which i was asked questions mainly on Data Structures and Implementation. I was also asked about the various projects on my resume. If you know your algorithms and data structures, amazon should be easy to crack.
Interview Questions
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 15, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 1 week)
There were questions about stacks, sorting large datasets, database organization and more over the course of two phone interviews. I had a hard time getting any info about what position I was actually interviewing for and what the team did. I mentioned a few times that I didn't want to work in Java full time, but nobody would say if that was the case, and I think that may have been a problem in getting past the second phone interview.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Jan 1, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2011 in Seattle, WA (took a day)
1. A recruiter called to schedule an appointment with the interviewer.
2. The interviewer asks technical questions like:
- How do you implement a hash structure,
- How do you parse a text file for certain items..
- etc.
3. The interviewer asked for you to write a method using a website where your edits are live.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Dec 29, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2009 in Bangalore (India) (took a day)
The first round consisted of a written test, testing the background in Computer Science on various topics like Operating Systems, Networks, Compilers, Algorithms and data structures and programming questions on basic data structures.
Then the 1:1 interview rounds begin for shortlisted candidates. In the first round they asked me to code a simple BST based problem (most probably finding common ancestor of two nodes.). They asked for the exact code and the interviewer coded it on the laptop to check the code.
In the 2nd round, they asked me to design an efficient data structure to store strings and compare strings. This involved using dictionary and I solved it in some time. I did not go through this round.
Interview Questions
1. IsPrefix (s1, s2) : Is s1 a prefix of s2.
2. IsEqual(s1, s2) : Are s1 and s2 equal.
3. common prefix(s1, s2) : Return the common prefix of the given strings s1 and s2.
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Amazon.com
Posted Dec 24, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 2 weeks)
I was contacted via LinkedIn by an Amazon recruiter asking if I would be interested in applying for their team of engineers working on a product for their Kindle organization. The team of engineers were traveling to a few locations to interview candidates, and asked if it were possible that I travel to where they were doing interviews in Madison, WI.
The interview process took place at a Sheridan hotel in Madison, and consisted of a one on one interview with, first one of their software engineers, and second, one of their product managers. Each interview lasted approximately 50 minutes.
The first interview with the software engineer consisted of first talking a little bit about myself and my background, a few technical questions and definitions, and then being asked to code a few problems on the whiteboard. The last 5 or so minutes were reserved for asking the interview questions. The interview was very professional, laid back and friendly.
The second 50 minute interview was with a product manager, and consisted of being asked why I wanted to work for Amazon, and then after that went directly to coding problems on the whiteboard. Again, the last 5 minutes or so were reserved for my questions about the team and company. This second interviewer seemed less friendly than the first, and was much older. He didn't show too much emotion.
Overall, the interview experience was very positive and professional. Obviously for a tech giant like Amazon, be ready to dive right into technical questions. And relax, most of the interaction I had throughout the interview process were with people who seemed very laid back friendly people.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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