American Express

Software Engineer Interview Experience - New York, New York

July 1, 2019

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Amex's recruiting is a mess.

I had initially interviewed for another position a couple months ago. I spoke with an internal recruiter who then set me up with a video interview that was supposed to be a panel discussion with a few developers and a hiring manager (no coding). Instead, I got a technical 1:1, which I was not prepared for.

They said I could reschedule if I wasn't prepared but never got back to me.

I was given another interview for a different position with them via an external recruiter afterwards. I was invited onsite where I was given a ridiculous amount of coding challenges. I answered them correctly but ran out of time for one.

Due to this, they told me that they expect their engineers to be problem solvers and rudely told me that I was not a problem solver (based on one tiny mistake due to being nervous). I was then escorted out of the building before I could finish my interview. I wouldn't have minded the rejection so much had they not said this.

Several of my friends also interviewed with Amex, and all agreed that their recruiting is horrible. Many received interview requests but never had the chance to speak with them because they are unorganized.

Questions

Code Fizzbuzz

Using the class syntax in JavaScript, code a small method that determines the winner of a poll.

Print Fibonacci to n using recursion.

Find the second smallest number in an unsorted array.

Find the largest sum of an unordered array.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 34 interview experiences for the American Express Software Engineer role in New York, New York.

Success Rate

47%

Pass Rate

American Express's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in New York, New York is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive50%

Neutral24%

Negative26%

Candidates reported having good feelings for American Express's Software Engineer interview process in New York, New York.

American Express Work Experiences

AMEX: More like AMESS

Software Engineer • Former Employee

New York, New York, United States

September 17, 2024

Pros: - You get a lot of free time while waiting for approval from higher-ups. It typically takes 4-5 days for a response from a C-Suite or VP. - You don't need to keep up with the Israel v. Palestine conflict because if anything negative happens to Israel, Mr. Squeri will send out a company-wide email condemning the actions against them, or if like Henry Kissinger or a past AMEX C-Suite dies. - If you're a Staff Engineer or Director, you can dip for two months and make the lower-level engineers deal with the summer intern.

Cons: - Multiple years worked here & he has yet to acknowledge anyone but the C-Suite's hard work. - Directors & Staff Engineers who have been at the company for 10+ years just coast. They routinely miss meetings and lack the fundamental knowledge about the applications they've been managing. - Staff Engineers dip during summer for 40+ day vacations, perfectly timed with when summer interns show up so they don't have to deal with them. - 99% of your interactions as an engineer are with individuals in India who are sleep-deprived from working 7 pm-7 am, as they're 12 hours ahead. And yet, the CEO still pushes for a return to office. - Red tape around AI is a mess and should be reviewed/updated. It shouldn't take 2 months and 3 separate intake processes to run a single line of code that uses AI/ML. - Poor documentation on key processes like decommissioning an application or RFCs. There's a 50/50 chance the Slack help chat person gaslights you or tells you you're in the wrong channel. - Very caste-like in that Staff Engineers consistently hand down their work to lower-level engineers & then take all the credit.

AMEX: More like AMESS

Software Engineer • Former Employee

New York, New York, United States

September 17, 2024

Pros: - You get a lot of free time while waiting for approval from higher-ups. It typically takes 4-5 days for a response from a C-Suite or VP. - You don't need to keep up with the Israel v. Palestine conflict because if anything negative happens to Israel, Mr. Squeri will send out a company-wide email condemning the actions against them, or if like Henry Kissinger or a past AMEX C-Suite dies. - If you're a Staff Engineer or Director, you can dip for two months and make the lower-level engineers deal with the summer intern.

Cons: - Multiple years worked here & he has yet to acknowledge anyone but the C-Suite's hard work. - Directors & Staff Engineers who have been at the company for 10+ years just coast. They routinely miss meetings and lack the fundamental knowledge about the applications they've been managing. - Staff Engineers dip during summer for 40+ day vacations, perfectly timed with when summer interns show up so they don't have to deal with them. - 99% of your interactions as an engineer are with individuals in India who are sleep-deprived from working 7 pm-7 am, as they're 12 hours ahead. And yet, the CEO still pushes for a return to office. - Red tape around AI is a mess and should be reviewed/updated. It shouldn't take 2 months and 3 separate intake processes to run a single line of code that uses AI/ML. - Poor documentation on key processes like decommissioning an application or RFCs. There's a 50/50 chance the Slack help chat person gaslights you or tells you you're in the wrong channel. - Very caste-like in that Staff Engineers consistently hand down their work to lower-level engineers & then take all the credit.

Great Team, Team Dependent

Software Engineer • Current Employee

New York, New York, United States

Pros: Great tech stack, talented team.

Cons: It really depends on which team you are on.

Great Team, Team Dependent

Software Engineer • Current Employee

New York, New York, United States

Pros: Great tech stack, talented team.

Cons: It really depends on which team you are on.

Great WLB, stagnant career

Software Engineer • Current Employee

New York, New York, United States

Pros: WLB, and ability to innovate if you take charge.

Cons: Stagnant in terms of career mobility, small compensation.

Great WLB, stagnant career

Software Engineer • Current Employee

New York, New York, United States

Pros: WLB, and ability to innovate if you take charge.

Cons: Stagnant in terms of career mobility, small compensation.

AMEX: More like AMESS

Software Engineer • Former Employee

New York, New York, United States

September 17, 2024

Pros: - You get a lot of free time while waiting for approval from higher-ups. It typically takes 4-5 days for a response from a C-Suite or VP. - You don't need to keep up with the Israel v. Palestine conflict because if anything negative happens to Israel, Mr. Squeri will send out a company-wide email condemning the actions against them, or if like Henry Kissinger or a past AMEX C-Suite dies. - If you're a Staff Engineer or Director, you can dip for two months and make the lower-level engineers deal with the summer intern.

Cons: - Multiple years worked here & he has yet to acknowledge anyone but the C-Suite's hard work. - Directors & Staff Engineers who have been at the company for 10+ years just coast. They routinely miss meetings and lack the fundamental knowledge about the applications they've been managing. - Staff Engineers dip during summer for 40+ day vacations, perfectly timed with when summer interns show up so they don't have to deal with them. - 99% of your interactions as an engineer are with individuals in India who are sleep-deprived from working 7 pm-7 am, as they're 12 hours ahead. And yet, the CEO still pushes for a return to office. - Red tape around AI is a mess and should be reviewed/updated. It shouldn't take 2 months and 3 separate intake processes to run a single line of code that uses AI/ML. - Poor documentation on key processes like decommissioning an application or RFCs. There's a 50/50 chance the Slack help chat person gaslights you or tells you you're in the wrong channel. - Very caste-like in that Staff Engineers consistently hand down their work to lower-level engineers & then take all the credit.

1.0
AMEX: More like AMESS
Software Engineer • Former Employee
New York, New York, United States
September 17, 2024
Pros: - You get a lot of free time while waiting for approval from higher-ups. It typically takes 4-5 days for a response from a C-Suite or VP. - You don't need to keep up with the Israel v. Palestine conflict because if anything negative happens to Israel, Mr. Squeri will send out a company-wide email condemning the actions against them, or if like Henry Kissinger or a past AMEX C-Suite dies. - If you're a Staff Engineer or Director, you can dip for two months and make the lower-level engineers deal with the summer intern.
Cons: - Multiple years worked here & he has yet to acknowledge anyone but the C-Suite's hard work. - Directors & Staff Engineers who have been at the company for 10+ years just coast. They routinely miss meetings and lack the fundamental knowledge about the applications they've been managing. - Staff Engineers dip during summer for 40+ day vacations, perfectly timed with when summer interns show up so they don't have to deal with them. - 99% of your interactions as an engineer are with individuals in India who are sleep-deprived from working 7 pm-7 am, as they're 12 hours ahead. And yet, the CEO still pushes for a return to office. - Red tape around AI is a mess and should be reviewed/updated. It shouldn't take 2 months and 3 separate intake processes to run a single line of code that uses AI/ML. - Poor documentation on key processes like decommissioning an application or RFCs. There's a 50/50 chance the Slack help chat person gaslights you or tells you you're in the wrong channel. - Very caste-like in that Staff Engineers consistently hand down their work to lower-level engineers & then take all the credit.

Great Team, Team Dependent

Software Engineer • Current Employee

New York, New York, United States

Pros: Great tech stack, talented team.

Cons: It really depends on which team you are on.

4.0
Great Team, Team Dependent
Software Engineer • Current Employee
New York, New York, United States
April 19, 2021
Pros: Great tech stack, talented team.
Cons: It really depends on which team you are on.

Great WLB, stagnant career

Software Engineer • Current Employee

New York, New York, United States

Pros: WLB, and ability to innovate if you take charge.

Cons: Stagnant in terms of career mobility, small compensation.

3.0
Great WLB, stagnant career
Software Engineer • Current Employee
New York, New York, United States
March 30, 2023
Pros: WLB, and ability to innovate if you take charge.
Cons: Stagnant in terms of career mobility, small compensation.

American Express Interview Questions

Minimum Deletions to Make Character Frequencies Unique

Given a string, find the minimum number of characters you must delete so that all remaining character frequencies are unique. No two characters can have the same frequency.

StringsGreedy Algorithms

Maximum Equal Frequency

Given an array of numbers, find the longest prefix where removing exactly one element makes all remaining element frequencies equal. Return the length of this prefix.

ArraysSliding WindowsGreedy Algorithms

Divide an Array Into Subarrays With Minimum Cost I

You're given an array and need to divide it into three non-empty subarrays. The cost is the sum of the first elements of each subarray. Find the minimum possible cost to divide the array.

ArraysTwo PointersSliding Windows

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