I applied through other source. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Dec 2011
Interview
I had the interview with Amazon yesterday so still waiting to hear back about a second interview.
The interviewer was very friendly and accommodating (I had bad phone signal) and we started off easy with him asking me all about previous positions on my resume. He wanted to know what projects I was proud of and which ones were most difficult.
We then moved into talking about common scenarios you might encounter as a developer such as finding areas of code which are slow and how to fix them. He wanted to know details of the debugging process starting from when a manager comes to you and says "This page is too slow" for example.
After that he wanted me to design a class structure for a furniture factory. There was already a simple (but flawed) structure in place and I was asked to improve it based upon various upgrades they wanted to implement. If you know your OO you'll be fine, it was mostly common sense stuff.
It ended up with the data structure/algorithm question which I was asked to describe in detail then code using an online collaboration tool so he could see me typing. The problem was writing an algorithm to detect when two linked lists intersect. The key I think is to keep talking and make sure you are explaining what you're thinking. He wanted me to improve the initial design and so I did and he accepted it as a good solution. We then talked a bit about Amazon, Seattle and what I'd be working on if I got the job.
Overall I think it went well and as long as you're up on details on your resume, OO and data structures you should be ok.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write an algorithm to determine if 2 linked lists intersect
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.
