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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AmazonData ScientistIntern
Oct 2025

Passed the Technical Loop, Now in Team Matching

I'm a third-year PhD student in Econometrics and Quantitative Economics, working in Finance, Public Finance, and IO. I applied to Amazon pretty late this year, and since I was extremely busy this semester, I took the last possible deadline at every stage. I finally got the email confirming I'd passed the final technical interview on April 10, and I'm now officially in the team-matching phase. I w…

In progressTechnical Screen0
AmazonData ScientistSenior+
Oct 2025

Five-Round Virtual Onsite, Position Filled Before Offer

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

In progressOnsiteXP0
AmazonData Scientist
Oct 2025

Technical Screen With ML Basics and Leadership Principles Questions

Behavioral questions The questions the interviewer asked were fairly simple, roughly like this: Give me a story where you have limited time to finish a project Give me a story where you actively learn a new skill (Learn and Be Curious) Give me a story (where you showcase "Bias for Action") Give me a story (where you showcase "Ownership") I felt like while interviewing me, the interviewer might ha…

Technical Screen0
AmazonSoftware EngineerSenior+
Sep 2025

Five Rounds, No Breaks, and a Gum-Chewing Hiring Manager

Just finished interviewing this week. Not a great experience. The whole process was rocky — I got re-matched to a different team several times, and there were two months between the phone screen and the onsite. Security & Service org. It felt like they just wanted to go through the motions, not like they actually wanted to hire me. Round three with the hiring manager was especially bad — I've nev…

RejectedOnsite0
AmazonSoftware EngineerSenior+
Sep 2025

Five-Round L6 Onsite, No Breaks, One Rough HM

Just finished interviewing this week. Not a great experience. The whole process was rocky — I got switched between teams for matching several times, and there were two months between the phone screen and the onsite. Security & Service org. It felt like they wanted to go through the motions without actually wanting to hire me. The third round with the HM in particular was a really bad experience,…

RejectedOnsite0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Two Online Assessment Questions on Calorie-Maximizing Jumps and Password Similarity

Question 1: Problem description: A user is doing jump exercises using an Amazon fitness tracker. There are n blocks of different heights (height[i] is the height of the i-th block). The user starts from the ground (height 0) and must jump to every block exactly once, with the goal of maximizing calories burned. The calories burned jumping from block i to block j are calculated as (height[i] - hei…

Online Assessment0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Recruiter Gave a Last-Minute Ultimatum for the Only Onsite Slot

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…

Onsite0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Virtual Onsite with BQ, an OO Ticket System, and a Recommendation Engine

This was a virtual onsite. The interviewer told me right away that he'd be taking a lot of notes, so I shouldn't read too much into it. BQ section: The first question was on "Ownership" — he asked if I'd ever run into something that wasn't technically part of my responsibilities but I went ahead and took care of it anyway. The second was "Deliver Results" — he asked for an example of delivering s…

Onsite0
AmazonFront End EngineerIntern
Sep 2025

Two Rounds and a Verbal Offer Tied to Internship Length

OA outcome: I solved both algorithm questions (passed all the test cases). For the behavioral part after that, I just went with my own gut feeling — the work simulation section was mostly about logic, and I hadn't looked at Amazon's Leadership Principles beforehand. Interview experience: The interview experience was really good — the interviewer was warm and respectful, and gave a lot of hints an…

OfferTechnical Screen0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Three Onsite Rounds of BQ, Coding, and OOD

Round 1: Asked 6 behavioral questions, covering a pretty wide range. The ones I remember are: How to handle a tight deadline Proactively helping others (help others) Digging into a problem's root cause (deep dive) How to handle disagreeing with a colleague (conflict with colleague) Doing something outside your scope (outside your scope) How to respond to negative/harsh feedback Round 2: Two codin…

Onsite0
AmazonSoftware EngineerSenior+
Aug 2025

a Vague LockingTree Screen That Ran Long

I interviewed for L6 last Friday — I'm probably 80% sure I failed. It was with the Aurora team, and the interviewer ran the whole thing. The interview was scheduled for one hour, but I got tortured for an hour and a half. Right off the bat the guy spent about 10 minutes introducing himself, then had me talk about a time I both challenged and simplified a system — the scope needed to be big enough…

Technical Screen0
AmazonApplied ScientistNew Grad
Aug 2025

Five Virtual Onsite Rounds, Mostly Behavioral, End in an L4 Offer

Background: I'm a non-CS PhD with a CS master's. Earlier this year, after there was a lot of negative news about my advisor, I switched advisors, gave up on academia, and started interviewing. Prep: since I had no internship experience and I'm not a CS PhD, my rule for myself was that I had to land an offer within at most two interviews, so I probably prepared more than I actually needed to. Roug…

OfferOnsite0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Three Onsite Rounds With a Bar Raiser and Nonstop BQ Challenges

Round 1 (possibly a bar raiser): The interviewer gave me 2 BQs and 2 coding questions. BQ1: tell me about your project... follow up... BQ2: don't remember. Coding1: given an int array where only one number appears an odd number of times, find and return that number. I used a hash table -> follow-up: how do you optimize the space complexity to O(1)? I got stuck on this one for a while, we went bac…

Onsite0
AmazonSoftware Engineer
Jul 2025

Bar Raiser Behavioral Marathon, a Parking Lot OOD, and Route-Planning Coding

Round 1: it went straight into bar raiser mode, five BQs back to back for the whole round, totally overwhelmed me. The ones I roughly remember: most interesting/proud project, dealing with ambiguity, conflict/different opinions, how to make your work more efficient (something like that? I used "prioritize things"), and the most challenging thing you've dealt with. Tons of follow-ups, and the inte…

Onsite0
AmazonProduct Manager
May 2024

Untimed OA Then an HM Phone Screen on Delivery-Driver Metrics

Sharing my hiring-manager phone screen. I mass-applied to non-tech positions at Amazon, and the recruiter emailed pretty quickly to schedule an OA. After passing the OA, there was a 45-60 minute phone screen with the HM. The OA was a work simulation and work style assessment — there were videos and emails simulating a typical work environment, and it wasn't timed! So just relax and take your time…

In progressTechnical Screen0
AmazonProduct Manager
Jan 2024

Five Rounds, All Behavioral Questions

After one round with the hiring manager, I got the result the next business day: move forward to the virtual onsite. There was almost a month gap after that, so I had plenty of time to prepare. I split the 5 rounds across two days, and it was pure behavioral questions the whole way through. I remembered roughly some of the questions, so sharing them here. The first one was with the hiring manager…

OfferOnsite0

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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