Taken from Reddit: " I graduated from my state university and got a job at a local insurance company as a developer. Then, within 3 or 4 months of joining.. I got a linkedin message from an Amazon recruiter. I actually asked him if he meant to message me. I simply couldn't believe it. We chatted a little bit, and then he sent me an online assessment for the new grad SDE1 position at Amazon. Now, I am going to be totally honest with you. I did not know at the time what leetcode was. I didn't know any fancy tricks or algorithms to invert a binary tree, I had no idea what two pointers meant, I barely knew how to traverse a tree. So.. I cheated. Yes. I cheated on the online assessment. I just googled the questions and found a forum where someone had posted the exact same thing, and people replied with solutions to it. If my memory serves me correctly, the first question was to merge overlapping intervals in a two dimensional array. The second was to find the minimum depth in a binary tree. I typed the answers onto the online assessment to make it look like I did not copy and paste (I assumed they had screen recorders). I must have done something wrong, since the first question passed all the test cases, but the second one.. only half were passing. Honestly, I just submitted it at that point and hoped for the best.. because I genuinely did not know how to answer those questions, and felt like I would fail some time farther along in the interview process. So I submitted the question, laughed to myself, and continued on with my life. To my surprise, a few days later.. I got a second online assessment. They told me I passed the first one. Again, I was very surprised.. but knew that I wouldn't make it to the end since I simply wasn't prepared enough. But I opened the second online assessment anyways. Again.. I cheated. It was some behavioural stuff, and I googled each of the questions. Once again, there were answers on some forums. It was all multiple choice, with some text boxes to enter more elaborate answers. Things like scenarios at work and stuff. I submitted it, and moved on with my life. Again, 2-3 weeks later... I got another notification.. I had been invited to a single 30 minute interview. At this point, I actually could not believe I had made it this far in the recruiting process, being totally unprepared. I booked the interview, knowing I would fail at this step since they would ask me some insane technical questions. But they never did. It was a simple one on one interview, we made some small talk for 10 minutes and then he asked me to explain my solution to the technical questions I finished in my first assessment. Now, I had no idea what to do, because I had copied them. So I just went line by line explaining what the code did, in a very vague manner. I was absolutely sure this is where I would be rejected. I am telling you... what I said was barely english.. I was stumbling and making no sense what so ever. At the end of the interview, we made small talk again for a few minutes and then said good bye. This time FOR SURE, I knew it was over. There was no way I was getting in. So, when I looked at the online portal for the application, my mind was blown when it said that I was accepted for a position in Toronto. I couldn't believe it. I double checked. Triple checked. How the FUCK was this possible? I did not prepare what so ever, and I cheated every step of the way. How the FUCK did I get into a top company this easily? I wish I had known back then, that this was actually a HUGE red flag. But I was too blinded by the salary and the prestige. Everything you have said in the OP is 100% accurate. There is no joy here. There is no one having fun. There is just work. Mountains and mountains of work. It's not even sexy work. I get yelled at on a daily basis, and I am working 12 hours a day. When I sleep, I have nightmares about this place. It has ruined my confidence, and I regret every single day accepting that initial online assessment. Maybe it's karma for cheating, I don't know. But I am done with this place. I get recruiters messaging me daily, and I am honestly going to message them back. I can't work here any more because it is killing my mental and physical health. I have put on 40 pounds since I began working here, because I am so exhausted after work that I just binge on junk food. My co-workers are my enemies. I can not trust a single one. Everything I say to them can be used against me to my manager. Every time I help them, they take credit. I do the same now. I have learned to do this to survive this long at this company. I have learned to see everyone else has an enemy. I have learned to take everyone down in order to rise myself up. That's how it is here. I am just at the 2 year mark, and I am dreading living my life. I have interviews lined up, but they are with lesser companies, simply because I do not have time to do leetcode or brush up on system design stuff. I wish I could go back to my first job at that insurance company. Fuck I made a big mistake. " Typical or not?
Should’ve put a popcorn button
This isn’t college. There is no “cheating” outside of the confines of the test, you can always Google search things. It’s not karma either. He simply doesn’t have the skills to do the job, why did he think he would succeed?
sorry but it doesn’t sound like that’s the crux of the problem here. i’m also not alone in being skeptical that being able to lc maps to actual engineering skill. i wouldn’t assume he is unskilled or “not smart enough” for amazon
@new, it’s less about a direct mapping between LC and engineering skill (though I do think that grinding LC does reinforce some good DS/algo fundamentals) and more about the OP’s unwillingness to put forth the effort needed to succeed. His “cheating” shows he’s looking for a short cut and that shortcut-seeking mentality just doesn’t get you that far. His story says more about his inability to stick with hard problems than it does about his skill.
can someone explain to me why his coworkers would behave like this, especially if you are someone who acts like that? Also, how did he get in purely via OA (or talking about them) and no onsite?
Amazon stack ranks and uses that to terminate employees. So everyone is competing against one another
sure i’m just surprised engineers would be that cutthroat. (lawyers or consultants, ok). also i think openly getting help, or collaborating, or using someone else’s expertise often makes you look better; more like a leader and more capable at managing a project or your work in general.
I have heard, that grad interview is only OA, I don't know why Amazon is doing it this way. If it is to reduce the experiences for an interview, it seems penny-wise and dollar-foolish to me, since misshire is much more expensive, just from a company perspective. It also sucks to be misshired or have such a colleague
this sounds like they’re just asking people to cheat. it’d make more sense to have a simple take home with some anti plagiarism check run against it.
Just OA? Recently they took 1 OA followed by 3 rounds of technical interviews in India. Is this OA thing for US? Btw this for new grad
Tbh, the “recruiters messaging you every day” part is probably worth it in the long run
In college I've seen kids cheat on Amazon OA in public areas with multiple laptops open or talk about "working on it" together later. College kids still believe amazon is great and prestigious. I remember talking to a friend, saying I was joining Amazon and some random Indian kid nearby in my hci class' eyes opened wide up 😲 and he started asking me so many questions. I joined Amazon as a new grad years ago just to see how Amazon was since I always declined their intern offer. The process was the exact same as that reddit story but i didn't cheat, the questions were easy. I stayed less than one month at Amazon for full time and don't include it on my resume. Manager just yelled at me every 1-1, coworkers were insanely toxic and unhelpful. I never had that bad of an experience anywhere, at apple or fb it was never nearly as bad. It's just the average Amazon new grad experience. The other new grads I worked with at Amazon had no clue what anything was, wouldn't google things themselves, and just completely incompetent. I had to explain what an API and http was since some kid wouldn't learn himself, felt like I was a high school TA. They were setup for failure and pip. I felt embarrassed working at Amazon and was super relieved when I left them. Awful hiring and awful culture.
Cheating on a behavioral is a new low
Cheating in a coding interview if not cheating. Everyone should do it !
I literally think I interviewed this person.
Lmao how did u pass him then? Can u interview me too I have the same interview 🤣
Jesus I see it daily on Blind but I just can’t believe this actually happens, absolutely crazy