Amazon Senior Software Engineer Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Test
Experience: The written test did NOT involve general aptitude questions. Most questions were CS specific and pertained to some kind of algorithmic analysis, design of recursive solutions, designing and tracing out an algorithm on a given sample etc. About 50-60% of the candidates were eliminated in this round.

Round: Test
Experience: The next round was a coding assignment. For those familiar with code-chef, the coding assignment was similar to a medium level problem (in the practice section) and had to be done in C. The codingassignment by design, required algorithmic optimization to execute within the prescribed time limit. About 10 candidates (8 UG and 2 PG) were selected for interviews. Yahoo generally conducts 4 technical interviews and an HR interview. Typically, 2 of the 4 tech interviews will be with immediate seniors in teams that are interested in your profile. The remaining two will be with more senior engineers (in fact, one of my interviews was with the tech director of a vertical at Yahoo). Interviewers discuss with each other after each interview, and some candidates were eliminated after one poor interview. It is therefore quite important to do

General Tips: Apart from technical skills, your communication and social skills are what can make or break an interview and eventually, decide whether or not you get the job. Objectively speaking, most candidates who make it to the final round will be very technically proficient. Therefore, your aim should be to make the decision regarding your candidature anything BUT objective. The real advantage of an interview is to let the interviewer know YOU, beyond just your written test score or your academic credentials. Interviewers like confidence in a candidate and it can even make you seem better than you really are. It will also help to have a few well thought out questions in mind for your interviewer, to show him that you have put in more effort than other candidates to find out about the kind of work going on at the company. One thing youcan do is to find out who all the interviewers are during the pre-placement talk (Yes, attending the PPT CAN BE USEFUL). General Tips Preparation Look up their LinkedIn profiles and note what projects they have worked on or guided. Asking a few insightful questions about those specific projects is a good way to create a good impression of you. It is very difficult to truly judge a candidate during a 45 minute interview, so what matters a lot is the impression left in the interviewers mind about you. If possible, try to establish a social connect during your limited interaction with the interviewers, BEFORE the interviews take place. For example, one of my interviewers, a senior tech manager at Yahoo, was an NITK alumnus. Before the interviews, I spoke to him about his experience in college. As it turns out, he was one of the founders of the web club at NITK, of which I am a member. We spoke for about 15 minutes about how the club has grown and how the club has helped its members ever since.
Skill Tips: For a computer science student who intends to take up a technical job at a tier 1 company, spend as much time as possible, honing your technical skills. Start well before placement season, if possible, in 3rd year itself
College Name: NIT SURATHKAL