I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Amazon
Interview
(Palo Alto, CA)
3 problem coding assessment
2 phone screens
------ failed here
onsite
Actually the worst interview process and interviewers I've had ever.
Recruiter Process:
Recruiter calls randomly with no heads up instead of replying to emails. The emails have copy pasted lines of different font and colors so there was clearly no effort put there.
There is a huge lack of communication on what to expect and next steps from the recruiter.
Interview Process:
1. Interviewers love to ask 30 min worth of LP questions.
2. 20 min LC medium.
One of my interviewers did not even know the solution to the problem I was working on. I don't feel she truly understood the problem below after she put her own twist on it (More on this below).
Both my interviewers also had thick accents and it was difficult for me to understand what they were saying without asking for a few repeats.
LC Medium: Boundary of Binary Tree (20 min)
Do not print the boundary node if it is an inner node even if it is on the boundary...
Apparently I didn't understand that when she told me boundary and I walked through my example.
____1_____
/ \
2 3
\ /
5 6
/ \ / \
7 8 9 10
Ouput:
[1,2,7,8,9,10,3]
I solved the problem with 3 passes, she asked me to then revise with 1.
I created a map and stack for left/right with BFS (interviewer suggestion over DFS).
I started testing code and when I was done, interviewer said "Not sure..I need to run it and check if it works" lol.
How did she manage to pass the interviews if she needs a compiler to confirm the solution? Talk about double standards..
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.
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Calgary, AB) in Jun 2026
Interview
Online Assessment is the first step in the process. I didn’t have an HR phone screening and went straight to the OA after applying. It was sent to me about a week after I submitted my application.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The first question is LeetCode style algorithms question, and the second question gives a full stack repo (choice of Java, NodeJS, or Django) and asks to solve a backend issue which is causing a bug in the frontend. Unit tests must pass to pass the second question. You can run both backend/frontend indivdually or together