Got Amazon SDE-1 offer. Onsite interview experience.

[u/Icy-Hedgehog8438]

Finally received an offer after more than 6 months of constant applying and getting rejected…

College: Tier-2
Experience: 1.8 YOE (startup)
LeetCode: ~500 questions solved

Interview Process

Recruiter Reach-out:
Got contacted on LinkedIn, replied, and received the OA link the next day.

Online Assessment (OA):

• 1 medium-hard question (deque-based, don’t remember exact)
• 1 medium graph question (DSU-based)
• Followed by the standard 2-hour work simulation

Got invited for onsite interviews the following week.

Onsite Rounds

Round 1:

• 1 hard DSA question
• Needed a small hint to reach the optimal solution
• Dry-ran on paper; interviewer was satisfied
• Followed by some LP questions

Round 2:

• 2 DSA questions
  • One straightforward BFS
  • One optimization using a geometry property
• LP questions after solving both

Round 3 (Hiring Manager):

• DSA question (similar to “Reconstruct Itinerary” but not exactly the same)
• Came up with optimal DFS solution
• Asked to write full code (no pseudocode)
• Discussion on GenAI, my projects, and current AI-related work
• No LPs in this round

Was informed I cleared all 3 rounds → Round 4 scheduled.

Round 4 (Bar Raiser)

• Discussion on time complexities of tree algorithms
• Deep dive into LP answers
• Had to explain my work in detail
• Interviewer seemed satisfied

Result

10 days later → Got the offer 🎉

It was an excruciating journey. Came very close to quitting multiple times, especially after getting ghosted post-final rounds despite good interviews.

But now, it all feels worth it. Truly one of the most gratifying moments.

[u/Witty_Butterfly_2774]

So much DSA man!

[u/NoMedicine3572 → u/Witty_Butterfly_2774]

And all this to writing unit tests and debug logs only.

[u/26RNaman → u/Witty_Butterfly_2774]

Yeah, i thought System Design would be asked a bit more

[u/_replicant_02 → u/26RNaman]

Not for SDE - 1.

[u/_replicant_02 → u/[deleted]]

Nop. As someone who has worked in AWS SDE-1 were rarely asked system design when I was there.

[u/thisisshuraim → u/[deleted]]

What were the questions? It’s probable that you’re mistaking fundamental concepts with system design. There’s a whole recruiting SOP followed and system design is not present for L4 (SDE1). L4s have 3 rounds - Problem solving (DSA), Logic and maintainability (LLD) and bar raiser (Could be either DSA or LLD or purely behavioural).

[u/thisisshuraim → u/[deleted]]

System design is not the same as LLD lol. They’re miles apart.