Amazon SDE-2 — an offer after years of trying

Background

This offer didn't come easily — years of trying and more than three rejections, each with its own cooling-off period before I felt ready to try again. Eventually a recruiter reached out on LinkedIn about an SDE-2 opening.

Online assessment

Three parts: a DSA coding section, a system design case study, and a behavioural component.

Round-by-round

Round 1 — DSA

Graph problems requiring both BFS and Dijkstra's algorithm.

Round 2 — Low-level design

Class diagrams and applying the relevant design patterns.

Round 3 — High-level design

Functional and non-functional requirements, choosing an appropriate database, and operational excellence considerations.

Round 4 — Bar Raiser

The most demanding round: a deep dive into problem solving that tested fundamentals including binary search and topological sort.

Verdict

Selected.