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How I Passed Amazon's SDE Internship Interviews (Software Engineering)

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How I Passed Amazon's SDE Internship Interviews (Software Engineering)

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325 segments

0:00

five months from start to offer two

0:02

different job portals four part oop

0:03

design problem two interviewers

0:07

hey how's it going phyllis here to be

0:09

honest if you wanna learn about amazon

0:11

internships all you have to do is to go

0:12

to the cs major subreddit and read for

0:15

two hours i'm sure you will learn more

0:16

than what any random youtube video can

0:18

tell you i interned at aws in fall 2021

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and there were a lot of things i wish i

0:23

knew before i got started so in this

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video i'm gonna try to tell you

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everything i know now so that you can

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have a better internship experience so

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first let's talk about the application

0:31

process

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[Music]

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the first thing you have to know is that

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when you apply actually matters i

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applied to the sd internship in october

0:40

and only got a response back in january

0:42

the interview process itself took

0:44

another two months so in total it took

0:46

me about five months from start to offer

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that is a lot of time right if you apply

0:50

too late you might not even be able to

0:51

get an offer because of limited

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headcounts so my advice is that you

0:55

apply as soon as possible amazon sd

0:57

internships usually get posted around

0:59

august of every year so if you can't

1:01

just apply right away if you want a firm

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deadline to prepare i would say apply by

1:05

the end of september most of my friends

1:07

did that and they got their offers

1:08

pretty early now another question is

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where you apply

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and this is very simple just apply

1:15

online don't worry about any in-person

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events amazon is a huge company that

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recruits in a lot of universities and

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they would go to a lot of career fairs

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however if you have talked to amazon at

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any career fair you will know that they

1:27

will tell you to apply online this is my

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exact experience at cmu for two years so

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if amazon tells all the cmu students to

1:33

apply online they will probably tell you

1:35

to as well so you might just want to

1:36

apply online and save some time at the

1:38

career fairs now that you know when and

1:40

where to apply you might go to the

1:41

online website to start looking for jobs

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there are generally three types of

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engineering internships you can apply to

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the first one and the one that everybody

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applies to is a normal sde internship at

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amazon software engineers are called

1:54

software development engineers that is

1:56

exactly the same thing there's no

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difference one thing to know is that

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other subsidiaries of amazon such as

2:01

twitch and audible have their own

2:03

recruiting websites so if you want to

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work for those companies specifically

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you should apply on their separate

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websites and their recruiting process

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might be a little different so you

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should be mindful of that the second

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program which is relatively new is

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what's called app the amazon propel

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program it works the same way as the sd

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internship but only for underclassmen

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think of it as the amazon version of fbu

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or google step so if you're a freshman

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or sophomore i would say just apply to

2:28

both and see which one you can get i've

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heard that when some underclassmen apply

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to the normal sd internship they

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actually got placed to the app program

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which is fine there's not much

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difference the third type of program is

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other technical internships for example

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sometimes a random data engineering

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internship might get posted and you can

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just apply to that there's no conflict

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to how many jobs you apply to but when

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you apply to any of those jobs make sure

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you look out for the specific region or

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even the specific country that the job

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is posted in amazon hires interns

2:57

globally so i would recommend that you

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apply to internships that you where you

3:00

want to work so just do a double take of

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job location when you apply to the

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internship now you have chosen the

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internship you want to apply to the next

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thing to do is to actually apply

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the application process is quite simple

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you just have to sign up and follow the

3:15

process one thing that's kind of

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confusing is that for students amazon

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actually has two different job portals

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amazon university.jobs is not the same

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as amazon.jobs for students the most

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important one is amazonuniversity.jobs

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that is where you will store all your

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information and get all the updates from

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amazon so make sure you don't forget

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about your password and have to reset

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every time don't ask me why i know it's

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just based on the real story another

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thing is that once you have signed up

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for your jobs account make sure you keep

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your resume updated i think that you

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interviewers will pull your resume from

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those job portals so if you have account

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from previous years make sure you

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re-upload your resume your application

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dashboard should be your point of

3:54

contact from now on it will show your

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job application status and you don't

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have to check every 10 minutes i know

4:00

i've been there it was pretty anxious to

4:02

wait for the next update if your job

4:04

status changes don't panic go check the

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cs majors subreddit i guarantee you

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someone has already made the post about

4:10

the exact same thing also the dashboard

4:13

is where you will accept or decline your

4:15

offer and see how much time you have to

4:17

make that decision so make sure you keep

4:19

it safe and check it from time to time

4:20

as well now you have already applied to

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the internship the only thing you can do

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is to wait until your resume gets picked

4:27

up the weight might be frustrating but

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that's the only thing you can do there

4:30

is nothing you can do to speed up the

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weight so just keep practicing in the

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meanwhile if you are lucky enough in a

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few months your application will

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actually get picked up and now you start

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the interview process

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for amazon sd internships there are two

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main components to the interview process

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the first part is the online assessments

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and the second part is the actual

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interview the online assessments or the

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oas are different every year but they

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generally follow the same format so if

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you want to get the most up-to-date

4:57

information you should check out the cs

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major subreddit it is very easy to see

5:01

what amazon's interview process is like

5:03

every year because a lot of people share

5:05

their amazon interview experience every

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year but generally they always go like

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this one is usually debugging you'll be

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given some problems in a web-based

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editor and you will have to just debug

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the code my only advice for this part is

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that you should learn java or c

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beforehand and also c plus plus because

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when i took it those are the only

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languages that were available oe2 is

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your usual legal problem it's usually

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pretty easy if you practice and

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sometimes you might even get the same

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problems that your friends had i guess

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amazon just doesn't really have a big

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problem database oe3 is what's called

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work simulation basically you're given

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real life work scenarios and you have to

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choose what works best for that

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situation it's mostly just multiple

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choices and filled in the blank and it's

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not really that challenging to do so as

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long as you pay attention to the

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problems you should be fine allegedly

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os3 is way more among all the oas so

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just pay some attention to it my advice

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is that make sure you stay to a

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consistent work style whether to

6:00

optimize the deadline or code quality

6:02

that's up to you but make sure you have

6:04

some kind of strategy when you look at

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the problems and just generally know how

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to work with people if you pass the 308s

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you will be invited to the actual

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interview for sd internships you have

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one 45 minute interview and for new grad

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positions you might have one 45 minute

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or three 45 minute interviews depending

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on your performance on the previous oas

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how is that determined i have no idea

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it's probably just totally random one

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thing i want to mention is that before

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the interview you should check out how

6:30

to use chime chime is basically just

6:32

like zoom but for amazon the app itself

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is kind of janky and hard to use i

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actually had my chime app not working

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five minutes before the interview and i

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had to troubleshoot and log in the web

6:42

version by which time i already lost

6:45

five minutes you might not think that's

6:46

a big deal but losing 5 minutes in a 45

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minute tight interview is kind of

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problematic so make sure you don't make

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mistakes like i did the interview will

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be split into two portions one of the

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portions will be technical which is

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basically your lead code problems there

7:01

are a lot of ways to prepare for the

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technical problems what i recommend to

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do is to just do the lead code using

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lead code to prepare will be enough when

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i asked all my friends who got into

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amazon most of them got pretty typical

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graph problems like dfs and bfs so make

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sure you brush up on graph problems but

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in reality what kind of problem you get

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is totally random you might get very

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unlucky like me i got a four part oop

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design problem which i barely finished

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and it was kind of a miracle that i even

7:27

passed the interview but i guess i just

7:29

got really lucky i think for the actual

7:30

interview you can use any language you

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want i remember my interviewer gave me

7:34

the prompt in java and i just did the

7:36

whole thing in python and they were okay

7:38

with it the other part of the actual

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interview will be the behavioral portion

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which is actually quite easy to prepare

7:43

amazon wants you to know what's called

7:45

the lps the leadership principles the

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rp's are a list of principles that

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amazon employees are expected to

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exercise so my advice is that you

7:53

prepare a story for each of the lps and

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you should be fine my experience is that

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your interviewer will specifically look

7:59

for parts of your story that kind of fit

8:02

the lp that they're looking for so make

8:04

sure you give them the kind of story

8:05

that they're looking for and you should

8:07

be fine funny thing i actually had two

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interviewers one of them is shadowing so

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that was a little bit more

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nerve-wracking than i thought so if you

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see two interviewers don't panic you

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will be fine one of them might just be

8:18

shadowing and you will not get double

8:20

the amount of problems but again what

8:22

kind of problems you are getting is

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absolutely random there's no one who can

8:26

tell you what problems you will get from

8:28

the actual interview so don't get too

8:29

upset if you get a really hard problem

8:31

you could still get the offer even if

8:33

you don't get the most optimal solution

8:35

so that's really all for the interview

8:36

process once you finish the interview

8:38

there's nothing else you can do but wait

8:42

you might be like me and just got really

8:43

anxious and just want to check it every

8:45

single day and i would say just don't

8:48

give yourself some time take a break and

8:50

just wait for the email at this point

8:51

there's nothing you can do to make your

8:53

application better so just take a break

8:55

within a few weeks you'll probably get a

8:57

response and if you're lucky enough you

8:59

will get the offer and that is when you

9:00

can start thinking about how you want to

9:02

deal with the internship the amazon sd

9:04

internship is kind the same as every

9:06

other sd internship there isn't that

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much difference so i won't talk

9:10

specifically about my experience but

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there's still a few things you should

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think about before you accept the offer

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the first thing is that you will not

9:20

know what team you will be on for the

9:21

internship your team selection is

9:23

totally random depending on your skill

9:25

set you will not know your team until a

9:27

few weeks or even a few months before so

9:30

there's no point to be too anxious about

9:31

it if you really want to get ahead i

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would say learn more java because java

9:35

is the most used language at amazon

9:38

another thing you can do to start early

9:39

is to connect with your manager as soon

9:41

as possible that way you can get a feel

9:43

of what kind of team you will be on and

9:45

what kind of project you will be doing

9:47

once you accept the offer the rest is

9:48

pretty easy to figure out you can send

9:50

questions to the official amazon

9:52

recruiting email and there will be a lot

9:53

of documentation to get you started once

9:55

you accept the offer so i won't get too

9:57

much into that one last thing i want to

9:59

mention is about taxes if you are doing

10:00

the sd internship in the us you are

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definitely going to file taxes so make

10:05

sure you keep a record of your w2 as

10:07

well as your relocation bonus all of

10:09

those will be needed when you file taxes

10:11

next year with that said the interview

10:13

process is actually pretty

10:14

straightforward and there's a lot of

10:16

information online to get you started

10:20

editing field here i realized that this

10:22

video is getting too long so i am making

10:24

a part 2 of it if you want to watch part

10:26

2 go click the link somewhere on the

10:29

screen right now and don't forget to

10:30

leave a like and subscribe and i'll see

10:32

you in part two bye

10:34

[Music]

Interactive Summary

This video provides a comprehensive guide for students interested in applying for software development engineering internships at Amazon. The creator details the timeline for applications, the importance of applying online early, the structure of the application portals, and the interview process, which includes online assessments and behavioral questions based on Amazon's Leadership Principles.

Suggested questions

4 ready-made prompts