Amazon SDE-2 Interview Experience | India | Reject

Hi community, I have recently interviewed at Amazon for SDE-2 role and wanted to share my experience.

Preperation timelines

March2023 - May2023
Practicing random problems and participating in lc contests to get into shape. Also became a knight on leetcode.
Jun 2023 - Oct 2023
Practiced DS Algo on leetcode( Medium ~ 300 and Hard ~50). Also practicied topic wise questions. I made sure that I covered most of the topics.

Interview Experience

OA
I have applied through careers portal and received a OA test link within 2 days. The OA had 2 problems(1 Medium and 1 Hard). I solved the 1st problem completely and was only able to pass 10/15 testcases for the second one. Also, there were lot of LP and design choices and scenarios based questions.

After a week, recruiter reached called and told me that I cleared the OA and discussed about my experience and other information. I was also given time to prepare. I took two weeks time since I wasn't really prepared for LLD and System Design Interviews.

Intitally, two rounds were scheduled on same day and HLD round after a week. Guess what, the interviwers didn't join the call for both the rounds. I felt sad and thought that I was ghosted. But fortunately, the recruiter called after a week and rescheduled all the three rounds.

Round - 1 - DS Algo + LP
After a 10 min intro, I was asked a backtracking question. Although I was scared, I was able to solve and run it successfully. After the first question, the interviewer grilled me regarding LP's. Fortunately, I had real examples to talk about and was able to fluently answer all the LP questions. After LP's, I was asked a question on trees which is actually a standard problem with some modifications. The modification is what made this problem hard. The interviewer wasn't really giving any hints and I couldn't solve it.

Round - 2 - Concurrency + LP
This is kind of a LLD plus coding round. It was just one question. This problem is related to strings and also had to optimise using Concurrency approach. I have implemented the code and had dry run with an example. The interviewer was extremely impressed. I also nailed LPs in this round.

Round - 3 - LP + HLD
This round was brutally exhausting. For the first 30 mins, it was nothing but me trying my best not to get humiliated. Hell lot of LP's and literally the interviewer was asking questions at granual level details. However, for most of the questions, I had real examples and could answer most of them. After LP's, I was asked a system design question. I was literally very much exhausted and anxious after answering those LP questions. Although the HLD question was really straight forward, I messed it up :( . Also, the interviwer was not at all communicative. It was like.. me discussing my approach with a wall. The interviewer's silence started to make me more anxious and I couldn't really do my best. I really belive that DESIGN INTERVIEWS MUST ALWAYS BE INTERACTIVE. I literally hated myself and couldn't really absorb the situation for almost 2 days.

After HLD round, I was very sure that I won't be proceeding further. But fortunately, I got a call from recruiter for bar raiser round and I was really happy. The recruiter told me that bar raiser round results will be very cruicial and will decide the offer. I prepared day and night to ensure that I don't mess up this chance.

Round - 4 - Bar raiser
This round started with no introduction. The interviewer asked me to open the link right away and gave me a LLD question. I gave a design which satisfied all the functional requirements. I also talked about tradeoffs to make sure that I won't give a room for judging. I have also talked about synchronisation , mutexes, why we need them and also added them to design. After 45 mins, it was about LP questions. I have answered them extremely well and the interviewer was satisfied. This round went so well that the interview ended 5 mins early, with smiles.

After the interview, I was very much happy since I nailed the bar raiser round. Infact, I ordered a pizza and was really enjoying every bite of it..lol.

However, as always, life has shown me where I belong to, despite my hardwork.

Recruiter called me after 4 days saying that my bar raiser round was not up to the mark so they won't be giving an offer. I was SHOCKED!! If the interviwer was expecting something else, they should have mentioned in the interview itself so that I would have answered them. Without knowing what's in the interviewer's mind, how can we come up with a design. I felt extremely sad and humiliated.

So, dear community, I wanted to share that though hardwork is really important for success, sometimes, no matter how much efforts you put in, success does not come. May be because of ill luck or what ever it is. If things are really not working for you despite working extremely hard, my humble suggestion is to absorb the situation, move on and be spiritual. Don't compare yourself with other's life and don't be harsh on yourself.

Wishing everyone good luck. I hope that your hardwork will give you success so that you get a sense of meaning and satisfaction in your life.