I applied through university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Nov 2008
Interview
I initially contacted Amazon through the career fair at my university; I gave them my resume at that time. Shortly after that, they contacted me to schedule an initial technical interview with a software development manager. The first interview was difficult, but I apparently answered the questions well enough to be invited back for three more technical interviews with Amazon software engineers. I went through a total of four in-person 1-on-1 technical interviews, each lasting approximately 45 minutes. After I completed those interviews, a recruiter notified me within a few days to notify me that Amazon would be offering me a job, and a different recruiter contacted me a couple of days after that to give me the specifics of the offer.
My advice: the interview questions will be difficult, but be confident, explain your thought process well, and retain your composure even if you think the interview is going badly. You might be doing better than the interviewer is letting on.
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Other Software Development Engineer interview reviews for Amazon
Surprisingly easy — I expected tougher questions, but the coding round felt more like a warm-up. The main challenge was a DSA problem about counting islands in a 2D grid, which led to a discussion on DFS versus BFS and handling large grids. Funny enough, I had revisited that exact type of question while prepping on PracHub, which made me feel more confident. The interview wrapped up with a behavioral round, and I accepted an offer, but ultimately decided to decline it for another opportunity. Overall, it was a smooth experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Number of Islands — given a 2D grid of '1's (land) and '0's (water), count the number of connected islands. Walk through DFS vs BFS, and discuss how to avoid revisiting cells (in-place mutation vs visited set) and what changes if the grid is huge and must stream from disk.
It started with an OA, and then after a few weeks, I got invited to four rounds of interviews: technical and behavioral at 3 of the 4, and behavioral only at one.
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Calgary, AB) in Jun 2026
Interview
Online Assessment is the first step in the process. I didn’t have an HR phone screening and went straight to the OA after applying. It was sent to me about a week after I submitted my application.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The first question is LeetCode style algorithms question, and the second question gives a full stack repo (choice of Java, NodeJS, or Django) and asks to solve a backend issue which is causing a bug in the frontend. Unit tests must pass to pass the second question. You can run both backend/frontend indivdually or together
