I applied through a recruiter. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at Amazon (Minneapolis, MN) in Mar 2024
Interview
I've interviewed at Amazon a few times. Ever since they've implemented their coding challenge, it's made the entire process pointless. Before, technical interviews were done with an Amazon developer and they could ask questions while you're writing out code. They could see how you approach problems, how you break down complexity. Basically, it was an evaluation of your skill as an engineer.
Now, the coding challenge is really more a test of your typing skills, the performance of the site's compiler, etc. It's a task that could easily be done by copy-pasting from some other site, but that's against the rules. It just gives you an entirely alien coding experience that doesn't actually measure anything that would indicate your quality as an engineer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Create an algorithm that does some string manipulation
Surprisingly easy — I expected tougher questions, but the coding round felt more like a warm-up. The main challenge was a DSA problem about counting islands in a 2D grid, which led to a discussion on DFS versus BFS and handling large grids. Funny enough, I had revisited that exact type of question while prepping on PracHub, which made me feel more confident. The interview wrapped up with a behavioral round, and I accepted an offer, but ultimately decided to decline it for another opportunity. Overall, it was a smooth experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Number of Islands — given a 2D grid of '1's (land) and '0's (water), count the number of connected islands. Walk through DFS vs BFS, and discuss how to avoid revisiting cells (in-place mutation vs visited set) and what changes if the grid is huge and must stream from disk.
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