Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

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136 stories

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AmazonSoftware EngineerIntern
May 2026

HR Promised LeetCode, I Got System Design and an AI Debate

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OnsitePremium0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
May 2026

A One-Hour Phone Screen With Two Sum Into Three Sum

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Technical ScreenXP0
AmazonSoftware EngineerNew Grad
May 2026

A Bar Raiser and Three Coding Rounds

R1: Bar Raiser The first interview was the Bar Raiser. It contained only behavioral questions and no coding. R2 Coding: Minimum Point Consumption Across Multiple Programs Problem description A user has points from different programs, such as airline miles, credit-card points, and store points. Each program has a different redemption rate, and the rates change daily. The user wants to pay a fixed…

Technical Screen0
AmazonApplied ScientistNew Grad
Apr 2026

A Month of Recruiter Ghosting Before One Chaotic Phone Screen

3/13 - recruiter call scheduled, system email assigned recruiter 1 3/15 - rejected, me: ??? 3/16 - recruiter call with recruiter 2, very nice person, said I could set up a mock interview with them, we scheduled a time, then they ghosted 3/17-4/13 - I kept providing my availability, kept hearing "does not meet team calendar," this kept repeating... 4/14 - recruiter 2 was out of office, recruiter c…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

an OA That Has You Debug a Password-Reset Repo with AI

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Online AssessmentXP0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

Four Onsite Rounds From Ride-Hailing System Design to a Pub/Sub OOD Question

Phone Screen Coding: Merge products by category. Given a bunch of tuples representing two products being in the same category, with transitivity, find how many categories there are in the end and the size of each group. Classic Union-Find — I solved it with BFS instead and it also passed. Onsite (4 rounds) System Design: Design a ride-hailing app. The core focus was on high-frequency GPS writes f…

Onsite0
AmazonData ScientistIntern
Apr 2026

Two Back-to-Back Virtual Onsite Rounds

This interview was purely a case of getting lucky. I got the interview invite on 4/12, then had two VO (virtual onsite) rounds back to back on 4/22, with no break in between. Both interviewers held PhDs. VO1 Standard LP (Leadership Principles) questions, and then they dug into a lot of detail based on my answers. Tell me about a most recent project Calculated risk A time you needed to extend a de…

In progressOnsite0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Mar 2026

OA in April, Offer After Four VO Rounds in July

Mass-applied at the end of January. Got the OA at the end of April: Coding question 1: there's an original version of this on the forum — a circular array of drone destinations (first and last connected end to end), find the shortest path. Coding question 2: AI debug. I picked Java. The problem was an actor + movie website. Roughly the functionality: users can follow actors, and an admin can add…

OfferOnsite0
AmazonData Engineer
Feb 2026

An Assisted VO With BQ and Two Coding Questions

Last week I ran an assisted Amazon virtual onsite (VO) interview for someone else. It was a behavioral round plus two coding questions. First, the behavioral part: How do you handle difficulties at work? When your team runs into difficulties, how do you encourage them and come up with a way to solve the problem? Why did you choose Amazon? Then the coding part. Coding 1: You're given an array of s…

Onsite0
AmazonSoftware EngineerIntern
Feb 2026

Two Back-to-Back Rounds, BQ Plus OOD and a Course Schedule Twist

The Amazon intern interview was pretty classic. The two rounds were back to back, one hour each. The BQ part asked pretty classic stuff — mainly 3 common conflict scenarios, one dive deep, and one out-of-responsibility question, plus a relatively new question about using generative AI. There were quite a lot of follow-ups overall, but basically none of them were especially technical — my feeling…

Onsite0
AmazonApplied Science ManagerSenior+
Feb 2026

Passed the Phone Screen After Two Project Deep Dives and Heavy Leadership BQ

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In progressTechnical ScreenPremium0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

A Two-Part OA with a WorkHoursRegister System Design Problem

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Online AssessmentXP0
AmazonSoftware Development Engineer (SDE) InternIntern
Feb 2026

Coaching a Mock VO With BQ, Morse Code, and a Word Break II Follow-up

Last week I ran a mock/practice VO (virtual onsite) session for someone prepping for their Amazon interview for the 2026 SDE intern role. It was BQ plus two coding questions. First, the BQ part: How do you handle it when you run into difficulties at work? When your team runs into difficulties, how do you motivate them and come up with a way to solve the problem? Why did you choose Amazon? Then th…

Onsite0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

A Heap-Based Rental Revenue Problem and a String Block-Partition Problem

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Technical ScreenXP0
AmazonApplied Scientist
Feb 2026

Two Onsite Rounds, No Coding, ML Breadth Sank Me

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

A Sparse Sliding Window Over Infinite Bags

The first online-assessment question was set in Amazon's financial team. An analyst had an infinite line of bags numbered from 1 onward. Information about the money in the bags was given as continuous, nonintersecting segments. Every bag inside a segment held the segment's stated amount, while every bag outside the supplied segments held zero. The goal was to choose exactly k consecutive bags tha…

Online Assessment0
AmazonSoftware EngineerIntern
Jan 2026

A Topological Sort the Interviewer Drew on the Spot

Round 1's interview and timeline are covered in a separate link, so I won't repeat that here. The interviewer described the question verbally: Amazon has a ton of services, and there are dependencies between them. When we take some of those services offline, figure out which other services end up affected. Clarifying questions: always, always do this first — get the conditions of the problem comp…

Onsite0
AmazonData Engineer
Jan 2026

BQ Plus Two Coding Questions in a Referral VO

Last week's Amazon VO, done through a referral, was BQ plus two coding questions. First the BQ part: How do you handle it when you run into difficulties at work? When your team runs into difficulties, how do you encourage them and come up with a way to solve it? Why did you choose Amazon? Coding part: Coding 1: You're given a string array words. Each word can be written as the concatenation of th…

Technical Screen0
AmazonSoftware EngineerSenior+
Jan 2026

Passed Coding, Failed on Database Internals

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
AmazonSoftware EngineerIntern
Jan 2026

Two Back-to-Back Rounds, BQ Plus OOD and a Graph Problem

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OnsiteXP0

What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

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