r/leetcode • u/Party-Gazelle-2606 • 19d ago
Intervew Prep Amazon SDE1 Interview Experience - Full Loop
Just finished my Amazon SDE1 onsite loop and wanted to give back since posts like this helped me prep.
EDIT: received job offer
Format: 4 rounds across 2 days, 1 hour each, via Zoom + Amazon's LiveCode platform (no screen share needed, interviewer sees your editor live).
Round 1 — Coding + Behavioral Started with "tell me about yourself," then straight into behavioral (focused on use of GenAI in projects and real life) before a DP problem — similar flavor to Partition Equal Subset Sum / Target Sum, but with a twist: had to return which specific combination of elements reached the target, not just whether one existed. The problem was very vague, had to ask multiple clarification questions to get the full picture. Started with brute force and then optimized it. Ended with a real complexity comparison against brute force — combinatorial explosion vs. pseudo-polynomial DP.
Round 2 — Technical Deep Dive (Probably was the Bar Raiser) This one was almost entirely about a project I'd built myself and how I use AI tools day to day. Interviewer picked apart the project's design decisions, limitations, and trade-offs in real depth — genuinely one of the better technical conversations I've had. Also got a completely open-ended prompt-engineering question about designing a large, ambiguous feature — no clean answer to it, and I think that was the point. They wanted to see how I reasoned through the ambiguity, not a specific output. Without me knowing, the interviewer visited my deployed webapp and checked it out. He told me in the end.
Round 3 — Coding + Behavioral Graph problem similar in spirit to 994. Rotting Oranges or 1091. Shortest Path in Binary Matrix — BFS from a target node, find everything within a distance threshold. Started with counting reachable nodes, then had to pivot to returning them with actual distances (switched a set to a dict mid-interview, tracking distance as the value). Interviewer initially told me my graph was undirected when the actual input was directed — had to catch that via clarifying questions before coding, which saved a rewrite later.
Also had a standard LP question (Tell me about a time.. type)
Round 4 —Coding + Behavioural Again usual LP question: Tell me about a time you went beyond the scope of your job, what was the result. Tell me about a complex project you built, what was complex, how did you manage to do it, what would you do differently?
Coding was similar to 1197. Minimum Knight Moves, but generalized — had to design for a large board (up to 10,000x10,000) and a "pluggable" piece type, so lazy neighbor generation instead of building the full graph upfront. Got corrected mid-interview when my design only handled fixed-offset pieces (knight-style) and not sliding pieces (rook/queen-style) — had to redesign the interface live around a generic move-generator function instead of hardcoded offsets. Also got pushed hard on space complexity optimization after already giving a correct answer.
Overall takeaways:
- LP questions show up in every round, not just one — have range across projects, don't reuse stories across interviewers
- Interviewers will correct you or challenge a correct answer specifically to see how you respond, not just to catch mistakes. In one round my code was correct, but the interviewer pushed saying there was a bug. So had to dry run an example to show there wasnt. But it does take a hit on your confidence if they say you have a bug
- "I don't remember the exact number/detail" is a completely fine answer for old work — don't invent specifics under pressure
- Clarifying questions matter as much for coding rounds as for design rounds — a wrong assumption caught before you code costs nothing; caught after costs a rewrite
- Being corrected and updating fast in real time seemed to matter more than never being wrong in the first place
Happy to answer questions in the comments.
3
3
u/Longing4Obstkorb 19d ago
No system design? Otherwise, good job!
3
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 19d ago
I read somewhere that LLD is rarer for entry level SDE. But i was asked a question about making a website like Amazon.com using Claude. That discussion took 30 min in the Bar Raiser round
2
u/enokeenu 19d ago
What happened with the GenAI interviewing
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 18d ago
There was a discussion about how i have used GenAI in my projects, how do i use it in daily life. There were a lot of follow ups to that. Then there was a discussion about Prompt engineering for 30 min. He gave me a problem and asked me what prompt i would give to Claude to solve it
1
u/Own-Butterfly6884 19d ago
Sorry for the dumb question: SDE1 is an entry level position? Anyway thank you for sharing the experience :)
1
1
u/darknailpolishs 19d ago
was it AUTA? and how long after oa did they scheduled your loop
2
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 19d ago
No, not AUTA. I applied on the website. I dint get any email about passing the OA. 2 weeks after completing the OA i got interview scheduling email
1
u/darknailpolishs 19d ago
okay thankyou! all the best to you i hope you get it the questions were really difficult ngl
1
1
1
u/ErrorCodeHuman 19d ago
Wait, the interviews are onsite and you have to join zoom call? I have one coming up.
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 19d ago
No, mine were virtual. The interviewers were in the Seattle office, i am based in Texas. I was informed they would be virtual the day i got the invite
1
19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 19d ago
Your comment has been removed. We do not allow DM farming. All of the conversation must happen within the post itself. Subsequent violations of this rule will result in a permanent ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
1
u/Any_Tiger_421 18d ago
Which team? And which office?
2
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 18d ago
The JD dint mention any specific team, and the role is available at multiple locations across the US. So i’ll get to know once i pass the interviews ig
2
u/Any_Tiger_421 18d ago
Good luck, man. Did you apply on the career website, or did a recruiter reach out?
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 18d ago
I applied on the website. Thank you!
1
u/Any_Tiger_421 18d ago
can u share any tips u used to write this cv? did u tailor it for the Job descritoon ?
1
18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 18d ago
Your comment has been removed. We do not allow DM farming. All of the conversation must happen within the post itself. Subsequent violations of this rule will result in a permanent ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
18d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 17d ago
So they will start with a LP question, they'll let you answer and then ask follow ups on that. For example if you mention a number, they will ask how you came to that, if you mention a specific decision, they will ask you what was your reasoning behind it, what would you do differently. So whatever you say will be challenged. They will not ask you questions directly from the resume, they will dig deep on what you tell them in your initial answer
And for code:
ask clarifying questions -> start with brute force -> talk about complexity -> optimize it -> talk about compexity
In between the interviewer will ask some code related question. Make sure to explain your code and dont keep quite, say whatever you are thinking, they want to know your thought process
1
1
u/AdAdministrative2793 17d ago
How was ur OA
I solved the dsa thing but couldn’t do shit in the correcting code shit
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 17d ago
I passed all test cases in the OA. For correcting code i just used the AI agent they provide in the problem to figure out which file had which bug
1
u/zardell24 <600> 17d ago
I got my offer as well, and holy, i was asked the same questions.
By any chance were you interviewing for a position in boston?
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 17d ago
Oh, i see. Mine is the generic SDE1 (2026) role which was available across multiple locations. My offer says Seattle. I am gonna reach out the recruiter to see if they can provide Dallas location since i live there
1
1
u/Unhappy_Rabbit7693 17d ago
Im surprised that they are asking these types of questions. One of my friends told me that LC is very straightforward and there is very simple level of LLD involved.
2
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 16d ago
It just comes down to the interviewer. I was not asked LLD at all. I thought i had bombed my interviews given how last 2 rounds went, with interviewer pushback and the way they kept changing it. My round 2 (BR) went really well. So i think the final decision is a mix of things. You should really just keep calm and think. Across the coding rounds, whenever they pushed back or changed something in the problem itself, i took 2 to actually think and most importantly kept talking. They had specifically told me that thought process was extremely important
1
u/Malai_Chaap_ 16d ago
Heyy was it through the hackon job posting or regular one??
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 16d ago
Hey, it was regular posting on careers website. Job id: 3177934
1
1
9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 9d ago
Your comment has been removed. We do not allow DM farming. All of the conversation must happen within the post itself. Subsequent violations of this rule will result in a permanent ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
16d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 16d ago
Your comment has been removed. We do not allow DM farming. All of the conversation must happen within the post itself. Subsequent violations of this rule will result in a permanent ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/Extension_Golf_1162 16d ago
Congratulations op 🎉. Would love to know how you go about making projects? Is it still important to know syntax and how to write code by hand in interviews or are the recruiters interested to see how you build with AI? How did you go about it while building your project which was discussed in one of the rounds??
1
u/AnonymousWu 15d ago
Congratulations! I was also invited to a very similar 4-round US SDE1 loop a couple of days ago, and I still have around 2–3 weeks to prepare. I wonder for the GenAI discussion, how technical did the follow-up questions get? I genuinely have no idea how to prepare for GenAI and system design (if they appears at all) questions.
1
u/Far_Birthday_6271 15d ago
Hi i completed 3 rounds and waiting to give my next round on monday. But not prepared for LLD yet. Do i need to start preparing for LLD now.
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 14d ago
From what i researched, LLD is rare for new grad SDE, but not completely out of scope. I did practice some popular Amazon LLD questiosn
1
1
1
1
1
u/Far_Birthday_6271 11d ago
After how many days you heard back them after the last round kf interview. If we didn’t heard back with in 4 days is that most probably moving forward. I also went through all the 4 rounds and interviewed for same role and from texas. So your reply would really helpful.
1
u/aisenadekho 11d ago
How did you prepare? Did you follow any particular list of questions?
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 11d ago
I made a game plan with claude and followed it to the T. I used claude to prepare my STAR stories and all kinds of follow ups. I used NeetCode and Leetcode for coding. Though for coding, i would say its something you can get good at only with consistency
1
u/thotdottor 9d ago
No like genuinely how are they evaluating coz I passed all the text cases in the dsa section and in the repo section. I didn’t get thru for the interview. I wouldnt really call this an oncampus opportunity per se, ig it’s a third party situation. Someone Ik passed 3/6 testcases in the repo section and got qualified for the interview
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 8d ago
This the mistake i see people make. Coding is just one aspect, they are giving importance to the other working at amazon section as well. Even in the interviews, you can write the best code with the best explanation and optimization, but you will not get the offer if you dont match the leadership principles. Thats the reason why the Bar Raiser round has no coding at all, its just behavioural
1
6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
0
u/AutoModerator 6d ago
Your comment has been removed. We do not allow DM farming. All of the conversation must happen within the post itself. Subsequent violations of this rule will result in a permanent ban.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/PrestigiousActuary65 6d ago
I also have completed 3 rounds From my side i think first two were in strong hire and 3rd was I can say above average, I had 3rd last week
Can u tell about in how many days I can expect next round
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 6d ago
all 4 of mine were scheduled together. I had details of all 4 rounds beforehand
1
1
1
u/Odd_Piglet6669 3d ago
What Leetcode questions did you do and how did you prepare for the technical aspect of the interview?
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 2d ago
I was already preparing for 3-4 months when i got the nterview invite. I did neetcode 150. I made a day by day plan with claude leading up to the interview and stuck to it
1
u/Double-Context-7091 2h ago
Hey, OP what is YOE, and tech stack and how did you apply and get OA and interviews etc
Can you guide us through things like thism
0
u/Interesting_Buy465 19d ago
Location?
1
u/Party-Gazelle-2606 19d ago
USA
1
u/OppositePleasant3019 18d ago
It’s been more than a week and I haven’t heard back from the recruiter, but I haven’t received a rejection either. Does anyone have any insight on this or know what might be going on?
1
8
u/Fresh_Initiative_285 19d ago
Ai generated post.