I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2012
Interview
When the recruiter approached me, I have asked for intermediate position, instead of telling me I may not be qualified, they sign me up for SDE I anyway. I did not understand their corporate structure so I had no idea. I should have suspected it when I find the interview questions so easy I can answer them in my sleep. In retrospect, my job is so operational in nature, they shouldn't have asked me computer science questions. Just test me on my ability to follow a huge amount of trivial instruction, I would have rightly failed. They didn't tell me that I would have to pay back my relocation expense in the contract, except that I have to... Now I am trapped in a job I suck at
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.
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.
