I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Oct 2019
Interview
Applied online to many jobs, got a referral from a current employee and that was the one I got an interview for so I think it helped. First round was an online code challenge, 2 questions in 60 minutes I believe. Passed and got an in-person interview scheduled about 2 weeks later. Company paid for travel and hotel. Interview day was a full afternoon with 4 back-to-back 50-min interviews as interviewers rotated through the conference room. Each interview started with 1-2 "behavioral" questions/discussions that took 10-15 min, and then a technical question for the last 30+ minutes. I had the option to whiteboard code or do it in an online code-sharing UI. I used a mix of both in the interviews. I was also allowed to choose the language I wanted to code in, which was nice. Turnaround was very quick - got an offer 2 days later, then about a week to finalize everything and started within a month.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Typical coding questions that require knowledge of data structures and algorithms (ex. lists, trees, BFS/DFS, maps, etc.) I prepared using Leetcode and GeeksForGeeks, and none of the questions I got after that were unexpected.
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