I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Dec 2010
Interview
I posted my resume on Monster and got a recruiter email to schedule interview within a week. The interviewer was some Indian guy and the interview was completely technical in nature. There were no formal introductions and I was required to have pen and paper to code some questions. Overall difficult interview but the interviewer was very helpful and encouraging. I am supposed to have another telephonic next week.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Given a series of N strings, find a set of repeating string of size 3
e.g. ababadefb
Given N numbers of memory size 1 bit per number and another memory set of size M bits, find the M largest bits from given N numbers without using additional memory
Staircase problem: Given a stair of size N and two ways to reach next step, take 1 step at a time or take 2 steps at a time. What is the total possible ways you can reach staircase of particular length?
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