Amazon

I applied for the Software Development Engineer Intern opportunity at Amazon through an off-campus application. After submitting my application, I received an invitation for the online assessment. The OA had a mixture of coding questions and other assessment sections. The coding problems were mainly based on DSA, with arrays, strings, hashing, and data structures being the major areas. The coding section was manageable, but the time pressure made it difficult to comfortably solve and verify everything. I focused on getting the optimal approach for each problem rather than rushing into implementation. After completing the assessment, I received the update that I had cleared the OA and was moved forward to the interview stage. The interview process consisted of two technical rounds, with each round lasting roughly 45–60 minutes. The first interview started with a short introduction before moving directly into DSA. I was given an array-based problem and was asked to explain the brute-force solution first. The interviewer then asked me to optimize it and discuss the time and space complexity. There were several follow-ups involving edge cases and changes in the constraints. I was eventually able to reach the intended solution, although I had to debug a small issue in my implementation. The interviewer then moved to another problem involving a binary tree. I explained the traversal approach and discussed an alternative way of solving it. The coding portion took up most of the round, followed by a brief discussion about one of my projects. The second interview was comparatively more challenging. I was asked another DSA problem involving graphs and had to reason through the solution step by step. I initially considered a standard traversal approach, but the interviewer introduced an additional constraint that required me to rethink the solution. I eventually arrived at a workable approach, but I wasn't able to implement it completely within the available time. There was also some discussion around Amazon's Leadership Principles. I was asked about situations involving teamwork, handling disagreements, taking ownership of a task, and dealing with a problem where my initial approach did not work. I answered using examples from my college projects and technical experiences. After completing the interviews, I waited for the final update. Unfortunately, I received a rejection and was not selected for the internship. Overall, the Amazon off-campus process was quite DSA-heavy, but it also showed me that technical interviews aren't only about reaching the correct answer. The interviewer continuously evaluates how you approach the problem, communicate your reasoning, handle changing constraints, and recover when something goes wrong. The biggest takeaway for me was that I need to become more consistent with solving unfamiliar problems under pressure. Knowing common DSA patterns is useful, but being able to adapt them when the interviewer throws an unexpected variation at you is a completely different challenge.