Hi everyone, I've initiated the process of interviewing with Amazon for their Alexa org (looks like an SDE1 position, I have ~1.5YOE), but I wanted to get some insight from the Blind community about their process. I completed the OA and got to the next round, but honestly, I'm not feeling confident. I did maybe 3 out of 4 parts, the first solution wasn't optimal and failed a few cases (probably because of time constraints) and the second one, I was coding an optimal solution but didn't complete. The last part was to explain the solution I believe, which I couldn't do because I ran out of time. What should I expect after the OA? I'm actually surprised that I got through to the next part. Should I lean heavily into LP question prep to try and save it with soft skills? Should I cram LC for the next couple of weeks hardcore? The last time I did a FAANG interview was for Meta, and I blew that one hard. Then I interviewed at Microsoft and did well, but didn't get an offer after the last round. Should note that I haven't really practiced much LC since I started my current job. #software #swe #amazon #interview
Which location are you going for? I am currently on the onsite for alexa team in irvine. They focus leet style questions.
It's for Sunnyvale, California, so Bay Area
Update op? Did you get it
Hi! I just did the interview today, and actually it went really well. It was a BFS question and I got a really nice and understanding interviewer. I’ll update again whenever I get the result
Which location you going for
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I mean… both LPs and LC are equally important obviously.. You need a couple of well-formatted stories (in STAR format) for each of LPs and also expect multiple LC mediums as well as basic things like OOD and CS fundamentals.
Thanks for the response, I have heard that STAR response format is super important for these interviews, I will keep that in mind. As far as CS and OOD goes I have that covered, to be honest I think that I am a good engineer, I am just very out of practice with some LC style algorithms (I get anxious during interviews and kind of forget the templates of some algos like graphs).
If those are not ur concern (which was also my case) then just focus on grinding LC and try covering as many topics as possible apart from prepping good stories to tell for LPs. Ideally you should be familiar with all the ds and algos but if you feel short of time, I recommend going breadth-first and focus on the core techniques instead of memorizing the questions. If you have a good problem solving skill and refresh on the fundamental concepts in DSA, you might stand a chance although it really depends on the interviewers and how you keep them engaged thru active communication over ur thought process. (Aka just think out loud when coming up with a solution and also clarify constraints & requirements before jumping into coding — this should be the last thing you do beside complexity analysis)