Amazon Software Engineer Interview Experience — Recruiter Gave a Last-Minute Ultimatum for the Only Onsite Slot

Amazon·Software Engineer·Sep 2025
Onsitemedium

I still don't know why they gave me SDE1 despite having 1.5 years of experience. The recruiter was toxic — no response the day I reached out, and then the next morning, before I was even out of bed, they called me and said there was only one interview slot available, and if that didn't work for me they'd just reject me. So I basically got pushed into it with no time to prepare.

I interviewed last week, and I honestly don't remember the behavioral questions in much detail anymore.

VO1
Interviewer: the interviewer.
Question: determine whether a directed graph has a cycle. The question itself was simple (DFS, look for back edges), and I explained my approach clearly, but the interviewer kept asking follow-up questions as if they didn't understand what I was saying — I honestly don't know what they were even asking about.
BQ: why Amazon, and a simple solution to a complex problem.

VO2
Interviewer: the interviewer.
Question: LeetCode 57 (Insert Interval). I stumbled a bit answering it, and I'm guessing that's where things went wrong.
BQ: biggest failure, a time you didn't meet a deadline, a project that went above and beyond.

VO3
Interviewer: the interviewer.
Question: a simplified version of LeetCode 622 (Design Circular Queue).
BQ: tight deadline, proudest project.

Published

Curated and edited by PracHub

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Interview at a glance

Company
Amazon
Role
Software Engineer
Rounds
Onsite
Difficulty
medium
Interview date
Sep 2025
Questions from this interview
4 questions

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