I applied through the Amazon Careers Portal on November 12, 2024, for the Software Development Engineer I role under Amazon University Talent Acquisition.

I received the Online Assessment (OA) link on November 21, 2024, with a deadline of five days to complete it.

Online Assessment (OA)

The OA consisted of three parts:

• DSA Problems: One easy and one medium problem. I finished both in 20 minutes.
• Work Simulation Round: This had 5–6 modules where I was bombarded with emails and had to select appropriate responses. It also included real-world problem-solving, like debugging an issue where a product page wasn’t loading. This round was mainly designed to assess my decision-making and leadership principles.
• Behavioral Questions: Multiple-choice format where I had to pick the most likely and least likely responses to different workplace scenarios.

I felt the OA went well, and on November 25, I received an email asking me to fill out a survey to be considered for the next stage.

Interview Rounds

Round 1 (December 2, 2024, 11 AM — 12 PM)

This was a DSA round with a very senior engineer as the interviewer. I was asked only one question on Graphs, where I had to code everything from input handling to output printing. The choice of data structure was important.

Round 2 (December 16, 2024, 11 AM — 12 PM)

This was another DSA round, where I was given a problem based on maps (hash tables). It was an easy-level question, and I solved it without much trouble.

After clearing this, I received a call scheduling my third round on the same day at 2 PM.

Round 3 (December 16, 2024, 2 PM — 3 PM) — System Design

The system design question was:

Design a bookstore system where multiple books exist, and you need to return the count of a particular word (fictional character) appearing in a specific book.

I had to define the classes, objects, and methods I would use. I structured my solution well, and the interviewer seemed impressed. After this, we discussed my projects, where I explained my contributions, problem-solving approach, and impact.

This round went smoothly, and I was soon notified about the final round.

Round 4 (December 17, 2024, 5 PM — 6 PM)

This was a mixed technical + deep-dive round.

• The interviewer first asked about my work at my company, diving deep into the tech stack, architecture, and design choices I had worked on.
• After 40 minutes of discussion, he said there was still time left, so we moved on to a DSA problem.
• The question was a medium-level Sliding Window problem.

I solved it, and that concluded my interview process.