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AMAZON | SDE 2 | 2.8 YOE | SELECTED

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Hi all,

I am excited to share that I have been selected as a Software Development Engineer 2 at Amazon under the Amazon Vendor Ads & Global Store cross-border business tech team.

The interview process consisted of six rounds, including the managerial round:

  1. Round 1: Online Assessment

    • This round featured three questions: one easy to medium, one medium, and one medium to hard.

      • Question 1: Related to substring and finding some pairs.

      • Question 2: Scenario-based, deleting a node from a BST.

      • Question 3: Seats allocation using a Greedy approach.

    After a week, I received a call to schedule a technical interview.

  2. Round 2: Technical Interview (DSA)

    • This round included two technical interviewers who asked questions and cross-questions.

      • Question 1: Simple Dynamic Programming problem - Max sum without adjacent elements.

      • Question 2: Linked list problem, solved by creating a dummy node (exact details are hazy).

      • Question 3: Finding the largest binary tree within a given BST.

    Two to three days later, I was called for the second technical round.

  3. Round 3: Technical Round (Debugging)

    • Two interviewers provided a problem to debug and identify issues.

    • The problem included a couple of compilation and runtime exceptions, which I resolved using their online compiler in about 10-12 minutes.

    • The issue involved an object being created in multiple places, causing it to be shared between classes.

    • Next, they gave me a link to a webpage similar to Amazon.com and asked me to identify why users couldn't reach the payment page after adding a product to the cart.

    • They also showed the code in an online editor. Initially, I was puzzled, but after a few minutes, I resolved it by adding a JavaScript document.getElementById function to fix the page rendering issue.

    • The fix was simple, but finding the issue was challenging, likely their intent.

    Five days later, I was called for the third technical round (speed-up round).

  4. Round 4: Technical Round (Design & Thinking Outside the Box)

    • This 2.5-hour round focused on Low-Level Design (LLD), some High-Level Design (HLD), and database theory.

    • The case study involved a live sale where users were divided into first-come, first-served and premium customers.

      • Premium users received a flat 10% discount on any product.
      • Normal users received 10% on the first purchase, 5% on the second, and 2% on subsequent purchases.

    • I solved this using Design Patterns (JAVA):

      • Builder
      • Abstract Factory
      • Adapter
      • Strategy
      • Observer and Mediator

    • Topics covered: HashMap for storing User:Discounts, queue (FCFS), PriorityQueue for premium users.

    • Implemented a CRUD application in real-time.

    Two days later, I was called for the hiring manager round.

  5. Round 5: Hiring Manager

    • A deep dive into my resume and experiences.
    • Discussion on why I want to join Amazon and its leadership principles.
    • Explained my experiences in the context of leadership principles.
    • Questions about resolving issues where users couldn't make payments via a specific bank credit card, considering perspectives as:

      • A customer

      • A merchant

      • A developer

      • A tester

      • A product manager

    A week later, HR called to discuss compensation and relocation formalities.

From completing my graduation at a Tier 3 college to moving to a service-based company (Capgemini) and working for 2.6 years, I finally landed at Amazon.

Remember, you know best how much you have struggled to achieve your goals. Appreciate yourself and celebrate your success.

All the best, and thank you for reading until the end. Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

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