Amazon SDE Intern OA
The assessment consisted of four components:
1. Data Structures & Algorithms A problem centered on minimizing the total cost required to make an array non-decreasing, where costs are incurred by applying increments to contiguous subarrays. Solved using a greedy, prefix-difference approach: tracking the running maximum and accounting only for the incremental increase in required adjustment at each step. Achieved O(n) time and O(1) space complexity.
2. Full-Stack Debugging Given a MERN stack e-commerce application with a broken admin product management module, the task was to identify and resolve two issues:
- Product creation was silently failing due to missing tag validation and an incorrect database call.
- Product deletion was non-functional, as the query lacked the required identifier and the route was missing its parameter definition.
Both issues were traced to the controller and route layers and resolved accordingly.
3. Work Style Assessment A series of scenario-based questions designed to evaluate approach to ambiguity, collaboration, and decision-making, aligned with Amazon's Leadership Principles.
4. Behavioral Assessment Situational judgment questions assessing responses to workplace scenarios involving prioritization, conflict resolution, and accountability.
Overall, a well-rounded assessment combining technical problem-solving with reflective, judgment-based evaluation. A useful reminder that strong engineering extends beyond writing code, it includes debugging methodically, communicating clearly, and demonstrating sound judgment under ambiguity.
Now we wait.