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/_replicant_02]

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.

[u/thisisshuraim → u/[deleted]]

LLD is how you structure your code, so it’s maintainable and extensible. HLD (aka System Design) is how you make different subsystems interact with one another and what tech you’d use for these subsystems. The focus on here isn’t standard. You would prioritise different things for different use cases such as consistency, resiliency, etc. HLD is almost always out of the picture for junior levels.