I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon in Dec 2010
Interview
I posted my resume on Monster and got a recruiter email to schedule interview within a week. The interviewer was some Indian guy and the interview was completely technical in nature. There were no formal introductions and I was required to have pen and paper to code some questions. Overall difficult interview but the interviewer was very helpful and encouraging. I am supposed to have another telephonic next week.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Given a series of N strings, find a set of repeating string of size 3
e.g. ababadefb
Given N numbers of memory size 1 bit per number and another memory set of size M bits, find the M largest bits from given N numbers without using additional memory
Staircase problem: Given a stair of size N and two ways to reach next step, take 1 step at a time or take 2 steps at a time. What is the total possible ways you can reach staircase of particular length?
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
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Santa Clara, CA) in Jun 2026
Interview
Recruiter reached out and set up an onsite loop after the initial steps. Four back to back rounds in one day. Two coding heavy rounds run by senior engineers, one round with the hiring manager, and one behavioral round with a bar raiser. Mix of leadership principles and data structures throughout. Heard back within a week.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard BFS grid problem. Given a grid, find the time for all cells to reach a target state where the spread happens one layer at a time.
How did you answer: Clarified the constraints, walked through the approach, then coded a clean BFS from all starting points at once. Tracked the number of layers until everything was covered.