I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Amazon (San Diego, CA) in Oct 2020
Interview
I was forwarded directly to a phone interview without completing the coding challenge/assessment. It was a one-on-one phone interview that mainly went over my work history and what I'd done, what I'd learned, etc. There was a coding question right at the end. My main complaint was that the coding question was confusing and not well stated. The interviewer tried to explain, but it just wasn't well explained, despite my preparation with prior Amazon coding questions from other online sources. He also cut me off after just a couple minutes. So it ended up being frustratingly not a test of coding ability or logic really as much as it was a test of how to deal with a badly worded coding challenge in a small amount of time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe what you've learned from your most recent software development experiences.
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.
