After a long and challenging process, I finally received the offer for the Amazon SDE-1 role through AUTA. Since I found many experiences here helpful during my preparation, I wanted to share my complete interview journey.

Timeline

• Applied through referral on 8th March
• Received OA link on 23rd March
• Completed OA on 29th March
• Received interview call on 20th April
• Onsite interviews in Bangalore on 23rd April
• HM/Gen-AI round on 12th May
• Bar Raiser round on 16th June
• Received selection call on 24th June

Online Assessment

The OA was a standard Amazon assessment consisting of:

• 2 DSA questions
  • One Easy-Medium
  • One Hard
• Leadership Principles assessment
• Work style assessment

Round 1 (1 hour) – DSA

Conducted by an SDE-1 and SDE-2.

• 2 DSA questions:
  • One Greedy-based
  • One Binary Tree-based
• Both were standard LeetCode medium-level questions.
• Discussed approach, edge cases, dry runs, and time/space complexity.
• Since some time was left, the SDE-2 asked a puzzle question which I was fortunately able to solve.
• The round ended with a brief discussion about my resume and projects.

Round 2 (1 hour 15 minutes) – LLD

Conducted by another SDE-1 and SDE-2 panel on the same day after a few hours.

I was expecting DSA but got an LLD question based on designing a logger system.

Topics discussed:

• SOLID principles
• Design patterns
• Edge cases
• Different design approaches

I wrote pseudocode and kept discussing trade-offs and improvements throughout the interview. It definitely wasn't a perfect round, but continuous discussion and reasoning seemed to help. The round again ended with a few questions about my projects and experience.

After some time, I was informed that I had cleared both onsite rounds and that the remaining rounds would be virtual.

Round 3 (40 minutes) – Hiring Manager / Gen-AI

After a long gap, this round was scheduled for 12th May.

• One LeetCode Hard sliding window question.
• Discussed the approach, wrote the code, and performed a dry run.
• The interviewer seemed satisfied and then moved to 2–3 general AI-related questions.

Overall, this round went well according to me.

Round 4 (40 minutes) – Bar Raiser

After another long wait, my Bar Raiser round was scheduled on 16th June.

This was a purely behavioral round:

• Deep discussion around projects and resume
• Leadership and decision-making related questions
• Multiple follow-up questions on situations I described

The interviewer seemed satisfied with my answers, but honestly I was not very sure how the round had gone.

Final Result

After 8 days, on 24th June, I received a call from the recruiter informing me that I had been selected for the role.

The entire process was definitely lengthy and challenging. There were multiple long waiting periods between rounds, and at several points I was unsure about the outcome. In the end, things worked out, and I received the offer letter.

I am a 2025 passout with around 10 months of experience.

Happy to answer any questions regarding preparation, interview rounds, or the AUTA process.

After a long and challenging process, I finally received the offer for the Amazon SDE-1 role through AUTA. Since I found many experiences here helpful during my preparation, I wanted to share my complete interview journey.

Timeline

• Applied through referral on 8th March
• Received OA link on 23rd March
• Completed OA on 29th March
• Received interview call on 20th April
• Onsite interviews in Bangalore on 23rd April
• HM/Gen-AI round on 12th May
• Bar Raiser round on 16th June
• Received selection call on 24th June

Online Assessment

The OA was a standard Amazon assessment consisting of:

• 2 DSA questions
  • One Easy-Medium
  • One Hard
• Leadership Principles assessment
• Work style assessment

Round 1 (1 hour) – DSA

Conducted by an SDE-1 and SDE-2.

• 2 DSA questions:
  • One Greedy-based
  • One Binary Tree-based
• Both were standard LeetCode medium-level questions.
• Discussed approach, edge cases, dry runs, and time/space complexity.
• Since some time was left, the SDE-2 asked a puzzle question which I was fortunately able to solve.
• The round ended with a brief discussion about my resume and projects.

Round 2 (1 hour 15 minutes) – LLD

Conducted by another SDE-1 and SDE-2 panel on the same day after a few hours.

I was expecting DSA but got an LLD question based on designing a logger system.

Topics discussed:

• SOLID principles
• Design patterns
• Edge cases
• Different design approaches

I wrote pseudocode and kept discussing trade-offs and improvements throughout the interview. It definitely wasn't a perfect round, but continuous discussion and reasoning seemed to help. The round again ended with a few questions about my projects and experience.

After some time, I was informed that I had cleared both onsite rounds and that the remaining rounds would be virtual.

Round 3 (40 minutes) – Hiring Manager / Gen-AI

After a long gap, this round was scheduled for 12th May.

• One LeetCode Hard sliding window question.
• Discussed the approach, wrote the code, and performed a dry run.
• The interviewer seemed satisfied and then moved to 2–3 general AI-related questions.

Overall, this round went well according to me.

Round 4 (40 minutes) – Bar Raiser

After another long wait, my Bar Raiser round was scheduled on 16th June.

This was a purely behavioral round:

• Deep discussion around projects and resume
• Leadership and decision-making related questions
• Multiple follow-up questions on situations I described

The interviewer seemed satisfied with my answers, but honestly I was not very sure how the round had gone.

Final Result

After 8 days, on 24th June, I received a call from the recruiter informing me that I had been selected for the role.

The entire process was definitely lengthy and challenging. There were multiple long waiting periods between rounds, and at several points I was unsure about the outcome. In the end, things worked out, and I received the offer letter.

I am a 2025 passout with around 10 months of experience.

Happy to answer any questions regarding preparation, interview rounds, or the AUTA process.

I received the interview invite for my 4th round (Bar Raiser) for Amazon SDE-1 through AUTA.

One thing I noticed is that my 3rd round (Gen-AI) invite included a live coding link, but the 4th round invite does not have any coding link mentioned.

Does this usually mean that the Bar Raiser round will be purely focused on Leadership Principles/behavioral questions, with little or no coding? Or is coding still possible even without the live coding link?

For those who have already gone through the Amazon SDE-1 Bar Raiser round recently, what was your experience like?

I have my R4 interview for Amazon SDE-1 (off-campus hiring through AUTA) scheduled in 3 days.

So far, I've completed 3 rounds that mainly focused on DSA and LLD. I'm trying to understand what to expect in the R4 round.

For those who have gone through this process recently:

• What kind of questions were asked in R4?
• Is DSA still asked even after multiple coding rounds?
• How much focus is given to Leadership Principles/behavioral questions?
• Was it more of a Bar Raiser, Hiring Manager, or system design discussion?

Any tips on how to prepare in the remaining 3 days would be really helpful.

Thanks!