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Amazon software engineer interview

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Re: Amazon software engineer interview

#41

Post by lostcolony »

exabrial wrote: post #38

When I interviewed for Amazon for a Java position, they had a C guy give the interview. When he asked me to implement atoi() on Java, Integer.parseInt() was the not correct way to do things at Amazon. After that it was all sys admin questions about the version of Linux they use. Somehow I managed to pass to the next level. I told them no thanks.

I had the same problem with Microsoft (atoi), and the same issue with the interviewer (being a C guy)...the issue there was that he thought (stringInstance).length() was an O(n) op, so the fact I was calling it in my loop meant my algorithm was O(n^2). My explaining that, no, Java stores the length as part of the object...kinda tanked the interview.

Re: Amazon software engineer interview

#42

Post by sotojuan »

jknoepfler wrote: post #24
blueatlas wrote: post #9

In total I had a little less than one month to prepare for the interview. I can't help but to wonder if it was really worth it. Surely, his prep helped him get the job, but the entire prep stage he describes seems like a very high up-front cost. I've always felt that if I can't get through an interview with a little prep and my existing skills, I don't belong. You should know exactly why you want to work for Amazon.…

It's interesting to see how "whiteboard interview" prep mirrors standardized test prep. What is frustrating is that the prep month (?! a month is an eternity) could have been used to contribute to an personal project of choice, which would have said a lot more about the author's ability to program.

Contribute to a personal project, socialize, learn a new language or framework, read books, etc. Amazing how many things you can miss out on with a month of "code" prep. And yeah, this definitely reminds me of high school a bit too much.

Re: Amazon software engineer interview

#43

Post by superuser2 »

jknoepfler wrote: post #24
blueatlas wrote: post #9

In total I had a little less than one month to prepare for the interview. I can't help but to wonder if it was really worth it. Surely, his prep helped him get the job, but the entire prep stage he describes seems like a very high up-front cost. I've always felt that if I can't get through an interview with a little prep and my existing skills, I don't belong. You should know exactly why you want to work for Amazon.…

It's interesting to see how "whiteboard interview" prep mirrors standardized test prep. What is frustrating is that the prep month (?! a month is an eternity) could have been used to contribute to an personal project of choice, which would have said a lot more about the author's ability to program.

>which would have said a lot more about the author's ability to program

It's my understanding that such a portfolio would increase your chances of entering an interview pipeline (just as work sample tests are sometimes used as further prerequisites to get into the pipeline), but a company's actual determination of how good you are is always based on the whiteboard, with few if any exceptions.

Re: Amazon software engineer interview

#44

Post by binarysolo »

ilostmykeys wrote: post #32
jknoepfler wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see how "whiteboard interview" prep mirrors standardized test prep. What is frustrating is that the prep month (?! a month is an eternity) could have been used to contribute to an personal project of choice, which would have said a lot more about the author's ability to program.

Yeah the world is full of idiots in charge. If someone is "in charge" then they are most likely idiots. It's the statistical truth. Look at the world today? Who can claim thag over population and a melting planet is progress? The world is run by idiots. Did I stress that enough? :) The very idea of trying to control quality of anything complex (work, life, relationships, economy, etc) via some extremely shallow and a…

So... be the change you wish to see? :) (Sure the world sucks, so there's constructive ways of tackling it and...)

Personally, I've found that a lot of stupid things are there because of downside protection or effort-minimization aka laziness from the primary stakeholders...

Re: Amazon software engineer interview

#46

Post by superuser2 »

rifung wrote: post #18
ideaskid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I bought it last week. But, couldn't answer through the questions because I didn't know the concepts and DS's. Could you answer these 2 questions? 1. Where did you learn how to implement the Data Structures and Algorithms? 2. Also, I'm in a dilemma between using Python and C/C++. Which one would you suggest?

Not the person you're asking but I previously passed the interview at Amazon. If you don't know the concepts/data structures, just read more about them, either on the internet or from a book. The internet is usually sufficient for most things but if you want to go more in depth, CLRS is the book that most people recommend. I haven't read it personally. Don't feel bad if you can't answer the questions, a lot of it is…

>CLRS is the book that most people recommend.

CLRS is a good reference if you want to look up some canonical algorithm and read the accompanying discussion. It is a terrible way to learn if you're not combining it with something more explanatory, like a professor. It's an extremely dense wall of pseudocode and proofs.

Kleinberg and Tardos is a little handwavy with its mathematical proofs, but does an excellent job of motivating the examples, holding your hand and explaining why the next step is next, etc.

It is not, however, a survey of the canonical algorithms and data structures. You will not learn how to balance or invert a binary tree. (My algorithms class was based on K&T, and while I learned a ton, I don't feel I learned how to pass a whiteboard interview). More of an introduction to algorithmic thought, with algorithms selected for their pedagogical value.

Re: Amazon software engineer interview

#47

Post by calibraxis »

daveguy wrote: post #34
ilostmykeys wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the world is full of idiots in charge. If someone is "in charge" then they are most likely idiots. It's the statistical truth. Look at the world today? Who can claim thag over population and a melting planet is progress? The world is run by idiots. Did I stress that enough? :) The very idea of trying to control quality of anything complex (work, life, relationships, economy, etc) via some extremely shallow and a…

> It's the statistical truth. I don't think claiming something is a statistical truth without showing the statistics will fly on HN.

There's good arguments for their point. For instance:

"When something goes wrong in a restaurant kitchen, and the boss appears to size things up, he is unlikely to pay much attention to a collection of workers all scrambling to explain their version of the story. Likely as not he’ll tell them all to shut up and just arbitrarily decide what he thinks is likely to have happened: “you’re the new guy, you must have messed up — if you do it again, you’re fired.” It’s those who do not have the power to fire arbitrarily who have to do the work of figuring out what actually happened. ..."

"True, bureaucratic procedure operates as if it were a form of stupidity, in that it invariably means ignoring all the subtleties of real human existence and reducing everything to simple pre-established mechanical or statistical formulae. Whether it’s a matter of forms, rules, statistics, or questionnaires, bureaucracy is always about simplification. Ultimately the effect is not so different than the boss who walks in to make an arbitrary snap decision as to what went wrong: it’s a matter of applying very simple schemas to complex, ambiguous situations." (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-revolu...)

However downvoted the parent post is, it's nevertheless one of the saner observations coming from a species destroying itself.

Re: Amazon software engineer interview

#48

Post by catchmrbharath »

geoelectric wrote: post #40

I'm all for interview prep, but this sounds like a fairly standard tech company loop. I usually take a few days to brush up on algorithms and structures for the first one I do in a batch, and have some canned answers for the personal questions, but otherwise go in with what I know. Some of that's experience now, but I don't remember any point in my career where I'd have done something this extensive. I hope the poste…

I had this view when I was interviewing for internships during this quarter. I have spent working and interviewing at a couple of places, before I came to pursue my masters and I believed people valued coming up with the solution on the spot.

I interviewed at atleast 10 places for internships and every single of them asked one of the questions from either leetcode or cracking the coding interview. I found none of them cared whether I am thinking on my feet for a solution or not. As long as you can reproduce the answers to the questions in a nice manner, you got selected. None of my interviewers were trying to understand / empathize how difficult it is to come up with a solution really quickly when you have not seen the problem before.

The thing I learnt through the ordeal is 1. Nobody cares whether you are thinking on your feet or not. 2. You need a month of preparation going into these sort of interviews.

Re: Amazon software engineer interview

#49

Post by linkregister »

lostcolony wrote: post #41
exabrial wrote: post #38

When I interviewed for Amazon for a Java position, they had a C guy give the interview. When he asked me to implement atoi() on Java, Integer.parseInt() was the not correct way to do things at Amazon. After that it was all sys admin questions about the version of Linux they use. Somehow I managed to pass to the next level. I told them no thanks.

I had the same problem with Microsoft (atoi), and the same issue with the interviewer (being a C guy)...the issue there was that he thought (stringInstance).length() was an O(n) op, so the fact I was calling it in my loop meant my algorithm was O(n^2). My explaining that, no, Java stores the length as part of the object...kinda tanked the interview.

You describe the "interview anti-loop," a term coined by Steve Yegge, a prolific blogger who wrote about the Google interview process. Better luck next time. I've come across it a few times myself. Also I've legitimately bombed interviews, sending apology emails to the recruiter immediately after leaving.

Re: Amazon software engineer interview

#50

Post by khedoros »

blueatlas wrote: post #9

In total I had a little less than one month to prepare for the interview. I can't help but to wonder if it was really worth it. Surely, his prep helped him get the job, but the entire prep stage he describes seems like a very high up-front cost. I've always felt that if I can't get through an interview with a little prep and my existing skills, I don't belong. You should know exactly why you want to work for Amazon.…

> I can't help but to wonder if it was really worth it.

It sounds like the kind of thing I might enjoy doing for fun, anyhow. It's my goal not to jump between employers. If I wasn't trying to find somewhere to stay for 5 or more years, then I'd be complaining about the up-front cost too.

> I've always felt that if I can't get through an interview with a little prep and my existing skills, I don't belong.

Ridiculous as it is, they're testing for things that your existing skills may not cover well, and that you may not have practiced in the last...well, since you learned it in school. You're trying to get a job doing things matching your skills, but the interview tests for something different (and arguably only loosely related). Still, that's the bar for getting the job.

> It would be interesting to know more about his desire to work for Amazon that badly.

For me, they've got local offices, so I wouldn't have to sell my home or leave the area my family lives in. They're a well-known company, and their engineering teams have a reputation for being picky. They also engineer for a scale that's hard to find in most other companies. If/when I decide to leave them, there would be the nice line on my resume where I can say I worked for them for x years. Of course, all of those apply for a couple other companies in my area as well, but they're still valid reasons to want to work there.

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