Amazon Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

I was going through Alex's DSA course however I don't quite understand a few of the concepts he mentions. For example, Alex mentions that the difference between a yes and a strong yes is that a candidate asks more clarifying questions and edge cases. Aren't these pretty much the same thing? Shouldn't we clarify all of the edge cases in the beginning? Also, shouldn't we discuss alternative solutions before we start coding? Also, time/space complexity as well?

I don't think this is the case however because Alex says not to do the happy flow + edge cases all at once but first to code the happy flow -> account for edge cases (after).

I think what Alex is trying to mention from this course is when given a DSA problem we should do basic edge case clarification and verbalization of our solution to very quickly get a solution out and then try to come up with more edge cases/solutions to see if we missed anything (as this is how software is built in real life. I wanted to confirm this point. Sorry if this is a ramble.

Hi everyone, I am a software engineer since 5 years now.

Over time, I have realized that I am ambitious but not competitive. I do my work as I enjoy doing the same and when my heart is in it. This has two facets:

1. I am not bothered when someone is doing better than me. I am loved by all. Nobody sees me as a threat. I love helping everyone.
2. Without feeling competitive, there are times when I lack the motivation at work. This also means I don't have the heart to snatch or ask for the better projects of my colleagues when I know they really want to do it. I am fairly excluded from the power hunger games.

I want to seek advise on what are the ways you have sustained your motivation at work and your ambition to climb the career ladder if not for competition? How much has a competitive spirit fuelled your career growth?

Hello, I am a recent graduate with a background in Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. I have Amazon’s final virtual interviews, consisting of four rounds, in 10 days, and Google’s final virtual interviews, also comprising four rounds, scheduled for early November. Although I passed the online assessments for both companies, I am not at all confident in my upcoming interviews. I have realized that my Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) skills, as well as my proficiency in Leetcode, are quite very rusty. There have been times when I struggled to solve many of the Leetcode problems.

I am currently using Neetcode to practice DSA and advanced algorithms, but I am feeling demotivated about tackling these coding problems and breaking into MAANG, despite having secured interview opportunities. I would greatly appreciate any advice on how I should approach my preparation if I were to start over from a beginner's perspective.

For Amazon’s interview, I have been following a 1-to-0 approach rather than a 0-to-1 strategy—focusing on reviewing solutions, understanding problems, and recognizing patterns using Neetcode and Grokking the Coding Interview, rather than actively solving the questions. With only 10 days remaining, how can I enhance my performance under pressure and prevent freezing during Amazon's coding interviews? Additionally, how can I sustain this momentum for Google’s interview preparation?

Thank you for your time and guidance.

Joining a FAANG (Amazon) as a senior eng after being mid level at another FAANG. The team uses Go programming language which I've never used before. Should I work hard on learning this language (in the week I have before starting) or just relax and wait till I actually start?

This is a follow up to

I decided to keep both roles open for as long as possible, so both are open right now. Meta postponed once and will now start in 3 weeks. Amazon postponed multiple times but it seems that they will finally send the laptop this week. I am expected to start at Amazon on Monday. There is a 2 weeks gap between Amazon's start date and Meta's start date.

I don't want to burn the bridge too much with Amazon but I have a large resume gap and I can't afford to lose both roles. So far, I don't see any reason that Meta would rescind the offer, but in this environment anything can happen.

When should I tell Amazon that I am taking a different role? I am leaning towards doing it this week, but I am scared to do it before Meta is 100% secure. Honestly, I can't afford anymore resume gap.

Background:

I interned on my current team last summer and returned full-time at the beginning of this year. I've been performing well and have a great relationship with my co-workers, manager, and skip manager.

However, I'm not satisfied with the level of engineering in the org as a whole. Specifically, our service does not operate at a high scale and thus the engineering constraints are very relaxed. It feels like we can get away with making poor decisions and I often think that I am not learning good engineering principles by being here. It also feels like my peers are not that ambitious or passionate about engineering which makes me feel like I don't fit in at times. As a result, I'm looking to change teams even though I am only ~6.5 months into my career.

I recently did an internal loop with another team that does very interesting work with high-scale and low-latency services. The interviews went well and I was given the transfer offer. I think my mind is mostly made up on joining the new team, but just wanted to ping-pong my situation with the Taro community as a sanity check on whether I am making the right choice.

I'm aware that switching teams is essentially a "soft reset" on my promo timeline. I have a lot of substantial work artifacts from my current team such as: code reviews for important feature work and docs that contributed heavily to the service we just launched.

I'm okay with taking a hit to my promo timeline because in my mind, if I zoom out and view my career as a 30-40 year span, it won't really matter whether I got promoted from new grad engineer in 1.5 years or 2.5 years.

What does the Taro community think of my situation? Am I thinking about this in the right way? I tried to keep some details vague as to not speak too negatively on my current team in a public forum. But I'm happy to provide more details to the best of my ability!

Hi Taro. I have two offers for contract roles through agencies.

First I got a 6 month role at Amazon. I previously worked at Amazon for a couple of years before I got laid off. I signed the offer.

Then I got a 12 month contract role at Meta. I decided that I would renege on Amazon and take Meta because it is longer. So I signed for Meta.

Meta starts in a month and Amazon starts in a week. There is a chance that after reneging Amazon, I could lose Meta. Meta can rescind the offer for example. How should I handle this situation while minimizing damage to my reputation at Amazon because I may return there one day for a full time role?

I am planning to ask Meta if I can start earlier, but I doubt it will be possible.

Thanks

Hi Taro. I worked at Amazon as an SDE for a couple of years before I was laid off. Recently, I signed an offer for a 6 month contract at Amazon. I might get a one year contract at Meta soon though. I never worked at Meta before. I wonder if it is worth burning the bridge with Amazon to take the role at Meta.

I have a few reasons for wanting to take Meta.

• Amazon is only 6 months and it may not get renewed. I don't want to put a short role on my resume and be looking for a job again in 6 months.
• Long term, I don't want to be at Amazon. Amazon really hurt my mental health.
• I would like to join Meta as a full time a lot more than I want to for Amazon. Their culture reputation is not great either, but I really believe it's better than Amazon.

I have one reason for wanting to stick with Amazon:

• It's not like jobs fall out of the sky. I am returning to Amazon now and I may return there one day for a full time role even though I prefer not to.

One common complaint I get from my friends to who I pitch Taro is why they should trust a company that is "Selling shovels during a gold rush".

I personally believe there is a ton of value in joining Taro but I can see their perspective since not every coaching/mentorship service has their clients' best interests in mind.

This question is more for Alex and Rahul but others are free to chime in. What is your response to this?

I'm thinking of joining Amazon as an L6 Applied Scientist. The reporting chain they've proposed to me looks something like:

VP -> Snr Dir -> Dir -> Snr Mgr -> Mgr -> Me

Now I've been made to understand that as L6, my official scope is Snr Dir, i.e. impact across teams that sit under Snr Dir. I'm concerned how far down the chain I am here, especially if I eventually want to grow to L7, which would require impact at the higher level (VP). I doubt reporting to the Snr Dir is on the table, but I'm wondering if I can try to convince them to let me report to the Dir. They're telling me that who your manager is doesn't affect your scope, but I'm skeptical. On the flip side, it is Mgr who seems very excited to hire me, and I'm wondering if mentioning this to either him or Snr Mgr (who I have a sell call with next week) will cause problems.

Any advice on how to navigate this situation would be most helpful.

I would like some info on how hiring decisions are made. I understand DSA and System Design are important but HMs know these aren't good predictors of performance so I see a disconnect there.

I'd like to understand what goes through the mind of the HM and/or committee before a decision is made.

I know it's a broad and complicated question that has different answers depending on the company, but any info is helpful.

My latest position was SDE II at Amazon, backend. I was laid off. I have not worked for 2 years. I find myself struggling with which project I should talk about in my interviews. Here are the projects I had worked on.

1. A project where I investigated how to create and analyze the right data to optimize something. This was at a previous company where we shipped highly technical software, and the software had nothing to do with the web. The project wasn't one where I built much of anything; the result was just an independent Python script. The technicals were in the weeds though. But I would say I spent more time on the project than the work needed me to.
2. A React Native side project. I did not launch the app, but the app worked on testing. My favorite project, as I learned a lot about planning, learning a new stack, and structuring my code. However, it's a side project and the stack is not related to what I mainly worked on at Amazon.
3. My 1st project at Amazon. A high level design of the project was done for me. The project was very simple technically: move a module from one service to another to support the deprecation of the former service. There were some choices of wiring where data goes in the new setup, but that was about it for the complexity. I worked with another team to discuss the data flow. I also broke down the project into small parts for a new grad SDE to do. I personally saw through the project to its successful launch.
4. My 2nd project at Amazon. I was working under another SDE II and he was the one who had done all the design, assigned me the parts to work on, and drove the successful launch. I remember the end business product well, but what I do not remember is the key high level code logic behind the scenes that make it work. As a consequence, even though I remember some parts of what I personally had worked on, I cannot drive a coherent narrative about them.
5. My 3rd project at Amazon. It was the first project at work I designed from scratch. I communicated with the technical project manager to get clear the requirements and thought about all the cases to cover to make a working design. I do not remember all the details of the cases I needed to cover but I can talk about them at a high level. The biggest downside of this project is that it was cancelled mid-implementation since another project it depended on was cancelled for reasons outside of my control. So this project never launched.

I am working with AWS and I was just promoted from L4 to L5 SDE role. I am yet to have the revised compensation discussion with my manager and was thinking if it is possible to negotiate the offer. During the annual PCS conversations, it was mentioned that the managers have more leverage for salary negotiations during the promo review. I want to understand what parts of the compensation I can negotiate upon. Does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks!

I'm fortunate to have someone who will refer me for whatever role I want at Amazon.

The problem is there are tons of very different teams and I can't tell which teams are growing or impactful. My intuition is mixed: Products drive revenue, so product teams should be the most impactful right? Quite easily not so as tooling teams can also scale massive impact at companies like these.

The first step I took is to reach out to my contacts at the company. I have multiple, but none of them seem to have a strong opinion, often indicating their own limited view across the company.

How should I think about this? Is there public data I can tap, or should I just get in wherever and transfer later?

I know about the Pomodoro Technique but I feel that 25 minutes is too short of a time block to get and stay in the zone.

How would you organize your day into time blocks for deep work while maintaining focus and not burning out?

• Four-hour blocks with a break in between?
• One eight-hour block (if there are no meetings)?
• One six-hour block?

I've been an SDE 2 at Amazon for the past 4 years, consistently exceeding expectations. However, I'm feeling burnt out, and it seems like support for my growth is lacking. I'm contemplating taking a career break, but uncertain about the current state of the industry and whether I'll find equivalent-paying jobs upon my return. What advice can you offer?

I just had an amazon behavioral interview. I'm a new grad SWE and interviewing for a non technical customer success role.

The interview was 3 behavioral questions. I tried to use STAR as much as possible but the interview was really like 15 ish minutes for the 3 behavioral questions. The interviewer did not follow up for 2/3 questions. At the end I asked 3 questions. total time was 20 minutes. Is it a red flag that my interview was only 20 minutes?

I think I was able to answer the behavioral questions and I mentioned the impact of my work/results at the end though I will admit I didn't go into super depth on the results part and focused more on the actions I think. This was my first real behavioral interview as well.

I've looked at the leadership principles. But it's a bit overwhelming the number of questions that can be asked. I dont want to be caught like a deer in headlights when I'm asked a question. But it also doesnt seem practical to prepare every question.

I'd love to know people's preparation strategy. Are you preparing 5-10 stories and then tagging them to different principles? if so what kinds of stories should I be preparing? i.e. what are the broad topics of each story?

Or Maybe are you preparing 1 different story for each leadership value?

Also If I'm asked "Who was your most difficult customer?" how would I answer this if I'm just a junior and have never dealt with customers first hand? or similar where I'm just like i've never been in this situation

For my Behavioral rounds Preparation.

1. I curated all the questions surrounding leadership principles
2. I also created STAR answers for each question

I try to demonstrate that I have led Projected and Solved challenging problems on my own. But even with that interviewers seem to downlevel me from L5 > L4 (Amzon Levels). what qualities I should exhibit to get L5 level and how should I prepare for it?

I'm an sde 1 at Amazon and been working there for 2 years. I have changed multiple teams during that time unfortunately. In every team, I have struggled with getting noticed by the team.

I have observed that the best performers talk about active tickets even when they are not on call. How do I balance between my task and working on extra tickets to get noticed?

What else can I do to get noticed apart from my own task and high sev tickets?