Amazon On-site in Seattle

Every round has behavioral questions followed by tech questions.

1st Round

by interviewer and a shadow.
Question: Compare two calendar dates (There is only Year/Month/Day in the given date stamp). It is a simple question but you’ll need to dig for further information from the discussion with interviewer.

2nd Round

by hiring manager.
Question: Design parking lot. The interviewer asked me to draw the block diagram to show relations among objects.

It seems weird to me as I doubt if the block diagram is expressive in the underlying relations. At last I just told him that I would be able to code the question, and drafted the data flow diagram instead of a block diagram.

3rd Round

by an interviewer
Question: Assume that a video service calls a function every time someone watches a video. Build a function that returns the n most viewed videos an hour ago till now.

I finished the code quickly with a O(nlogn) method. Interviewer asked for optimization but I wasn’t able to come up with it on the spot.

4th Round

by interviewer and a shadow.
Question: Given water and island represented in a matrix. Find the size of the largest island. For example ‘X’ is land and ‘O’ is water.
XXOOOO
XXXOOX
OOXOOX
XOOOOO
Return 5 which is the size of the largest island (top left corner).

Solved the problem with DFS. Was then asked for big O analysis.

At last I was given the chance to asked a few questions. I asked 'What does the company culture contribute to the success of Amazon'. The interviewer said 'None'. I got wordless. Then with a 'I know what you are thinking' look, he said 'Amazon isn't like the labor factory what other people think it is. Work hours is from 10am to 5pm. Pretty regular if you finish the tasks properly'.