I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Amazon (Toronto, ON) in Jul 2012
Interview
Applied online and heard from a recruiter within 3 hours. They had an upcoming interviewing drive. The recruiter discussed with me the position in the Toronto office on the phone to asses my suitability. Afterwards I was invited for an in-person technical interview for the following week.
The interview included four 1-on-1 sessions. Three of which were technical, one of which was more traditional HR (with the group's hiring manager).
The first technical interview was the standard stuff about binary search trees and hashing.
The second one (bar raiser) had a question about path finding in a grid-maze with obstacles.
Third interview had some questions regarding string manipulation in C and finding pairs that sum to k in an unsorted integer array.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Finding a path in a maze which is represented by a grid of characters.
I applied in-person. I interviewed at Amazon (Hyderabad) in Mar 2012
Interview
I appeared for the "Amazon Code Ninja" coding competition online at Interviewstreet.com just for fun. I solved 3 out of their given 5 problems and got world ranked 251. They HRs then contacted me via mail after a week asking me if I was interested. Once I gave the go they scheduled for me 2 telephonic interviews. These interviews typically had 3 algorithm questions in each. It was followed by 3 onsite 1 on 1 interviews at their Hyderabad office. In these 3 interviews the level of questions were tougher and you had 1 hour to solve and optimize 2 problems. This was followed by 2 telephonic interviews from Seattle one of which was by my Hiring manager. These rounds were about higher conceptual computer science questions and design questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design the backend system and data structure needed for an online ticket booking system for an intercity bus service.
Phone Screening - all technical (basics of computer, data structures, algorithms)
Online Coding (3-5 programs for 1.30 Hr in the language of your choice)
Onsite Interview
4-5 Technical Rounds on Data Structure, Algorithms, Design Patterns.
Top companies for "Compensation and Benefits" near you