I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Amazon (Chicago, IL) in Mar 2014
Interview
I was first given a coding test with basic debugging questions. The questions were very straightforward.
Afterwards I was given a call for a technical interview. My interviewer used technical language calling a file a list, which confused me during the interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Please code how you would implement a rating system from a "list" (file) of reviews from Amazon Prime. What is the run time of your solution?
Recruiter screen, online assessment, technical interviews, and behavioral rounds focused heavily on Amazon Leadership Principles. The process was structured, with a strong emphasis on problem-solving, coding skills, and examples demonstrating impact and ownership.
Recruiter screen, followed by an online coding assessment and then a technical phone interview. The final round was a virtual onsite loop with multiple interviews covering data structures, system design, debugging, and Amazon Leadership Principles. The technical questions were practical but time-constrained, and the behavioural questions required specific examples using the STAR format.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a scalable URL shortening service and explain how you would handle high read traffic, collisions, database schema, expiration, and basic monitoring.
That moment when the interviewer asked about finding indices in an array for a target sum was wild — I had just tackled something identical while prepping on PracHub. The interview included a technical round with another question about designing an in-memory LRU cache and a behavioral question about meeting tight deadlines. After a smooth discussion, I was told I'd received an offer, which I happily accepted. Overall, the process felt pretty straightforward and not overly challenging.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Given an array of integers return the indices of two numbers summing to a target