I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Amazon in Mar 2013
Interview
2 independent phone interviews
Interview 1: Started the interview asking me about the most challenging problem I have solved(technically) in the recent past. Define graphs, trees, BTrees, BSTrees etc. Applications of each of these. Questions like "Which data structure would you use when...". Questions based on multi-threading in java, questions on how Hash maps work internally, concurrent hash maps and hash tables.
Coding question: Check if two binary trees are equal. I did it recursively, he asked me do it iteratively. Complexity and all that.
Interview 2: This interview also started with the most challenging problem I have solved(technically) in the recent past. Then asked me to WAP to find the Nth Fib number(I was bewildered! Amazon, really?) Wrote the iterative version of the first ever program I learnt in my life. Asked me why I am not doing it recursively(was more than happy to answer.) He then asked me to find the nth prime in the least number of iterations(used the square root rule for reducing the number of comparisons). He tweaked around the same question like what would you do if want to find primes between two numbers. Complexity and all that. Given a set of billion numbers, how would you pick the biggest million numbers? When do u use hashes and how different is it from encryption? (Oh yea!). Some basic questions on patterns.
OOPS question- Design a Zoo
Suggestions: All they look for is how you can explain things in the easiest way. Before starting to code, ask him as many questions as you can(Like what complexity you looking at? Space? Iterative or recursive? Should the function return anything at all?). This is how functions looked in the first interview.
Contract: Tree Tree -> Boolean
Description: This function takes two Binary trees and checks for equality
Example:
1 1 -> True
2 3 2 3
2 2 -> False
3 4 3 5
Strategy: General recursion
Function definition:
public boolean areThetEqual(Tree t1, Tree t2){
...
}
Tests:
Check all boundary cases.
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When it's your turn to ask him questions, ask him some really relevant questions. If you make the interviewer think, you have done you job.
Hope this helps a little. All the very best.
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
