I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Oct 2025
Interview
Interview for L6 Role. First round was Hackerrank OA, pass/fail evaluation. It was 2 SQL coding questions with window functions like RANK/AVG and then 20 SQL multiple choice questions like 'which of the following has valid syntax'. Second Round was Phone Screen for 1hr, 1 leet code medium question on anagrams (25 min), bias and variance, mini-system design questions, 'how to design LLM', 'how to design a DB'. Final Loop was 5 interviews focusing on: 1) A/B testing and traditional ML modeling questions (regularization, bias/variance, overfitting etc) 2) Hiring manager conversation, mostly behavioral and resume deep dive 3) Science Application -- basically 3 Case Study problems somewhat hard on NLP/LLM since it was mentioned in the role 4) Bar Raiser Behavioral, make sure you know your big accomplishments and can answer 'what did you learn' 5) Data Manipulation Coding Interview -- all pandas they wouldn't let me use SQL. Do not waste your time hammering in leet codes for this one, practice common pandas functions for data science
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Can you write an anomaly detection tool in pandas? How do you do rolling average in pandas?
Looking back, I'm relieved I declined the offer, despite the intense experience. The interview process felt overwhelming, starting with some tough core ML concepts before diving into the LLM fundamentals. During the technical round, I recognized a tokenization question from a PracHub session I had done just a week before. It felt like a small win in an otherwise challenging interview. Ultimately, the pressure and expectations were high, but I felt it wasn't the right fit for me.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
LLM fundamentals: tokenization design and KL-regularized SFT
There are three rounds in total. The process begins with a coding round, followed by the main interview loop, where you will meet the team and discuss technical skills, experience, and fit.
First round is fun, second round, which is also the final round involved 5 sessions, with different focus. For some sessions, not be able to present my story completely, time was tight, and interviewers were rushing.