I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Amazon (Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais) in Jan 2013
Interview
One interview by phone. I thought I've answered all of the questions correctly but did not pass to next phase.
Asked about matrix, memory optimization, complexity...
He asked a lot of questions and in the end, I had to write an algorithm. He hanged up the call and gave me 10 minutes to solve the problem. I could do it in less time and he called me and asked to explain my algorithm.
Since it was an international call, I was not listening the interviewer very well too, but he was incredibly calm and repeated everything patiently.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
He asked the best way to store boolean values on memory. I said an array but he wanted more, so in the end I said BinaryVector class. He asked why a binary vector is a better option but I couldn't answer that. I told him that I don't know the internal implementation.
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
