I applied through college or university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Amazon (Bengaluru) in Dec 2009
Interview
The first round consisted of a written test, testing the background in Computer Science on various topics like Operating Systems, Networks, Compilers, Algorithms and data structures and programming questions on basic data structures.
Then the 1:1 interview rounds begin for shortlisted candidates. In the first round they asked me to code a simple BST based problem (most probably finding common ancestor of two nodes.). They asked for the exact code and the interviewer coded it on the laptop to check the code.
In the 2nd round, they asked me to design an efficient data structure to store strings and compare strings. This involved using dictionary and I solved it in some time. I did not go through this round.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a data structure to store strings efficiently for following operations :
1. IsPrefix (s1, s2) : Is s1 a prefix of s2.
2. IsEqual(s1, s2) : Are s1 and s2 equal.
3. common prefix(s1, s2) : Return the common prefix of the given strings s1 and s2.
Loop — 4 rounds, all on the same day
Round 1 — Coding (DSA)
Interviewer was a senior SDE, very friendly.
Warm-up + behavioral: "Tell me about a time you took ownership of something outside your responsibilities."
Main question: Given a list of meeting intervals, find the minimum number of conference rooms required. I used a heap. He then asked a follow-up: what if meetings could be reassigned to minimize total idle time? We discussed approaches but didn't fully code it.
He cared a lot about how I talked through edge cases out loud.
Round 2 — Coding + Problem Solving
LP question: "Describe a situation where you disagreed with a teammate."
Coding: LRU Cache implementation from scratch. I used a hashmap + doubly linked list. He pushed on thread-safety and what happens at capacity 0.
Round 3 — Behavioral (Bar Raiser)
This was the toughest round — no coding, all Leadership Principles, very deep STAR-format probing.
Questions I got:
"Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned."
"A time you had to deliver something with a tight deadline and limited information."
The bar raiser kept drilling: "What was your specific contribution?" "What would you do differently?" "What data did you use?" Have 6–8 strong stories ready with metrics.
Round 4 — Low-Level Design
Design: Design a parking lot system (classes, vehicle types, spot allocation, pricing). Then he asked me to code the findSpot() and releaseSpot() methods.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Most coding questions were LeetCode Medium. Common themes: graphs, heaps, sliding window, hashmaps, and LRU/design., system design,
Great interview process with three rounds, including a technical assessment and a technical interview. The interviewers were professional and supportive throughout the process. The questions mainly focused on DSA, problem-solving, and core technical concepts. The discussions were engaging and provided a good opportunity to demonstrate technical skills. Overall, the process was well-structured, smooth, transparent, and a very positive experience.
I applied through college or university. I interviewed at Amazon (Dublino, Dublino)
Interview
Online techincal assessment. Had to screen share and complete basic coding tasks similar to Leet Code. Could choose a language of your choice. Overall a very fair system and judged based on merit.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Technical assessment so a basic leet code style question about reversing the orders of long numerical strings.