Went through the first two phone screens and I'll be flying to Seattle for the final interview. I've been reading up on the type of questions asked and boy am I in for some trouble. I'm pretty much going to bomb the interview. I suck at answering CS questions on the spot ... hopefully, I do good enough to leave with some dignity.
UPDATE:
Here is the update for everyone who is interested:
My flight to Seattle involved myself repeating every single sorting algorithm that I could think of. I made sure that I understood what the sorting algorithm was doing and then be able to easily code it. I also prepared coming up with my own algorithms for Graphs and Trees in Java (thanks Argo ). I reached my hotel at around 7:30 PM and made a few phone calls, made sure to put in an order for breakfast, and watch a bit of CNN. By then I was dead tired and mentally prepared a list of things to go over again the following morning.
I get up the next morning at around 5 AM (yay for Pacific Daylight Time!), take a quick shower and start going over a few things again. There were a few things that I wished that I had checked but never remembered to get to it; unfortunately, I didn't have a laptop on me either.
My interview was scheduled to begin at 10 AM and I left the hotel at 9:15 AM and called a cab. When I reached the building it was not really what I expected it to be.. it was a non-descript building that really didn't give any hint that Amazon was housed in it until you entered the reception area. First thing I noticed that I was a tad bit overdressed (I was wearing business casual and a tie, but no jacket), I was expecting this but wasn't really expecting people to come into work with shorts (My current employer is an investment bank in NYC so it was a huge shock to me). But heck, I just got a great conversation starter. Anyway soon after I arrive, another person comes in for an interview and sits a few seats away from me. He gets picked up by a person at 9:45 AM. Its now nearing 10 AM and no one has still come for me. I'm thinking that they forgot about me and was about to go back to the receptionist but then comes the recruiter. I strike up a conversation with her and then she leads me to the interview room and goes over the usual corporate stuff and relocation.
Then all of the sudden we hear a knock on the door. Now, my mindset going into the interview was that I already have a job and worst comes to worse, I get to see the Space Needle. I was trying to maintain that composure but I begin to get a bit nervous and it continued to build up while I was talking to the recruiter. So the guy comes in and I recognize his voice as the person who did my first phone screen, I didn't do particularly well with him on the phone and was surprised that he passed me on to the second round. Anyway, he gets right into asking me to write out a simple algorithm on the white board... that came as a shock to me and I blanked out. At one point, I even forget the syntax to write a function in Java. It was excrutiatingly painful and he basically ended up writing the algorithm for me. In short, I totally blew it and I knew that I wasn't going to get in at that point. In hindsight, this was the best thing that happend to me as I knew I wasn't going to get in so at this point, I had no expectations which calmed me down.
Anyway the interview finally ended and the next guy comes in. He begins going over my resume and at this point I'm flustered and he asks me something on my resume. Still dazed from my previous encounter, I say something stupid and he corrects me. Now he proceeds to ask me a complicated question involving graphs. I come up with a solution after a bit of trying here and there, and he then asks me if I could do it an easier way. I try to think of something and finally he tries to hint me toward what he was thinking. He walks through his solution a bit and then realizing that his solution wouldn't work, he tells me to proceed with my solution. After I finish, we chat about the complexity of the solution and after a bit of back and forth I gave him a satisfactory answer. At this point, I'm in the zone since I've now got the confidence and am at ease.
Next up, lunch interview with the hiring manager. He screened me on the phone as well and he was a super cool guy to talk to. I chat him up by telling him how I feel overdressed (I couldn't think of anything else ) and we talk about random things as we walk toward a sandwhich place near the building. What struck me immediately was the fact that he couldn't go on for more than 2 minutes before he recognized somebody who was walking towards us and had to say hi. This continued throughout the whole interview. I was thinking he must be pretty well known to be recognizable. Anyway, I order a sandwhich and we sit outside for an interview. He was super cool to talk to and I was totally at ease with him. We talked on and on about my current experience and what his group does and I asked some pointed questions which he seemed to appreciate. He then asks me a fairly tricky SQL query question, I think through it a bit and he seemed a bit surprised that I was able to answer it fairly quickly with no hesitation. As we walk back to the building, he says that he is not promising anything but the interview went really really well.
As I get back to the interview room, the hiring manager introduces me to the Java Expert of the group. I think to myself, there goes my winning streak and we sit down and chat for a bit. He asks me the same question that I fubarred up in the first interview and I told him it was already asked. He then proceeds to ask me another algorithmic question which after a bit of thinking through I was able to code out. After I'm done coding, he asks me a question about the Java language that I had no clue about. I tried my best to think of an answer but I couldn't. Anyway, he then says his time is up but there is one more question he would like to cover while we wait for the next guy. As soon as he finishes his sentence, a knock on the door. That was real close, I thought to myself.
The next guy is a senior guy who has been with Amazon for 10 years. He was fairly easy to talk to and asks about how my interviews have been going so far. I tell him that I totally messed up the first and easiest question and then answered the rest with some ease. He says not to worry about it since it was probably interview jitters. We talk about my current work experience and the greatest thing I have accomplished so far. I gave him some good answers and then he asks me to code out something on the board. This was a bit complicated and I had actually thought about this question a few times before, I was able to code it with a bit of help from him and I think he was fairly satisfied. After the tech questions, he asks me if I have any questions. Now, I ask him a few questions and he answers plainly. After he's done answering, I'm think I should continue to ask questions and some of the questions I asked him were pretty darn stupid and I was shooting myself in the foot at this point. I think he realized that and called off the Q&A before it got any worse... and he sends me off.
So I think there is a 50/50 chance I could get in. I'll know by Wednesday. I bombed the first interview, but it looks like the interviews took place in order of seniority and I think I made the best impression on the hiring manager. However, it could also be the fact that the first interviewer let everyone know that I did really bad and they toned down the questions although the questions did get progressively harder in my opinion.
All in all, it was a great experience and I got to visit the space needle ... which is why I wanted to come to seattle in the first place
UPDATE:
Here is the update for everyone who is interested:
My flight to Seattle involved myself repeating every single sorting algorithm that I could think of. I made sure that I understood what the sorting algorithm was doing and then be able to easily code it. I also prepared coming up with my own algorithms for Graphs and Trees in Java (thanks Argo ). I reached my hotel at around 7:30 PM and made a few phone calls, made sure to put in an order for breakfast, and watch a bit of CNN. By then I was dead tired and mentally prepared a list of things to go over again the following morning.
I get up the next morning at around 5 AM (yay for Pacific Daylight Time!), take a quick shower and start going over a few things again. There were a few things that I wished that I had checked but never remembered to get to it; unfortunately, I didn't have a laptop on me either.
My interview was scheduled to begin at 10 AM and I left the hotel at 9:15 AM and called a cab. When I reached the building it was not really what I expected it to be.. it was a non-descript building that really didn't give any hint that Amazon was housed in it until you entered the reception area. First thing I noticed that I was a tad bit overdressed (I was wearing business casual and a tie, but no jacket), I was expecting this but wasn't really expecting people to come into work with shorts (My current employer is an investment bank in NYC so it was a huge shock to me). But heck, I just got a great conversation starter. Anyway soon after I arrive, another person comes in for an interview and sits a few seats away from me. He gets picked up by a person at 9:45 AM. Its now nearing 10 AM and no one has still come for me. I'm thinking that they forgot about me and was about to go back to the receptionist but then comes the recruiter. I strike up a conversation with her and then she leads me to the interview room and goes over the usual corporate stuff and relocation.
Then all of the sudden we hear a knock on the door. Now, my mindset going into the interview was that I already have a job and worst comes to worse, I get to see the Space Needle. I was trying to maintain that composure but I begin to get a bit nervous and it continued to build up while I was talking to the recruiter. So the guy comes in and I recognize his voice as the person who did my first phone screen, I didn't do particularly well with him on the phone and was surprised that he passed me on to the second round. Anyway, he gets right into asking me to write out a simple algorithm on the white board... that came as a shock to me and I blanked out. At one point, I even forget the syntax to write a function in Java. It was excrutiatingly painful and he basically ended up writing the algorithm for me. In short, I totally blew it and I knew that I wasn't going to get in at that point. In hindsight, this was the best thing that happend to me as I knew I wasn't going to get in so at this point, I had no expectations which calmed me down.
Anyway the interview finally ended and the next guy comes in. He begins going over my resume and at this point I'm flustered and he asks me something on my resume. Still dazed from my previous encounter, I say something stupid and he corrects me. Now he proceeds to ask me a complicated question involving graphs. I come up with a solution after a bit of trying here and there, and he then asks me if I could do it an easier way. I try to think of something and finally he tries to hint me toward what he was thinking. He walks through his solution a bit and then realizing that his solution wouldn't work, he tells me to proceed with my solution. After I finish, we chat about the complexity of the solution and after a bit of back and forth I gave him a satisfactory answer. At this point, I'm in the zone since I've now got the confidence and am at ease.
Next up, lunch interview with the hiring manager. He screened me on the phone as well and he was a super cool guy to talk to. I chat him up by telling him how I feel overdressed (I couldn't think of anything else ) and we talk about random things as we walk toward a sandwhich place near the building. What struck me immediately was the fact that he couldn't go on for more than 2 minutes before he recognized somebody who was walking towards us and had to say hi. This continued throughout the whole interview. I was thinking he must be pretty well known to be recognizable. Anyway, I order a sandwhich and we sit outside for an interview. He was super cool to talk to and I was totally at ease with him. We talked on and on about my current experience and what his group does and I asked some pointed questions which he seemed to appreciate. He then asks me a fairly tricky SQL query question, I think through it a bit and he seemed a bit surprised that I was able to answer it fairly quickly with no hesitation. As we walk back to the building, he says that he is not promising anything but the interview went really really well.
As I get back to the interview room, the hiring manager introduces me to the Java Expert of the group. I think to myself, there goes my winning streak and we sit down and chat for a bit. He asks me the same question that I fubarred up in the first interview and I told him it was already asked. He then proceeds to ask me another algorithmic question which after a bit of thinking through I was able to code out. After I'm done coding, he asks me a question about the Java language that I had no clue about. I tried my best to think of an answer but I couldn't. Anyway, he then says his time is up but there is one more question he would like to cover while we wait for the next guy. As soon as he finishes his sentence, a knock on the door. That was real close, I thought to myself.
The next guy is a senior guy who has been with Amazon for 10 years. He was fairly easy to talk to and asks about how my interviews have been going so far. I tell him that I totally messed up the first and easiest question and then answered the rest with some ease. He says not to worry about it since it was probably interview jitters. We talk about my current work experience and the greatest thing I have accomplished so far. I gave him some good answers and then he asks me to code out something on the board. This was a bit complicated and I had actually thought about this question a few times before, I was able to code it with a bit of help from him and I think he was fairly satisfied. After the tech questions, he asks me if I have any questions. Now, I ask him a few questions and he answers plainly. After he's done answering, I'm think I should continue to ask questions and some of the questions I asked him were pretty darn stupid and I was shooting myself in the foot at this point. I think he realized that and called off the Q&A before it got any worse... and he sends me off.
So I think there is a 50/50 chance I could get in. I'll know by Wednesday. I bombed the first interview, but it looks like the interviews took place in order of seniority and I think I made the best impression on the hiring manager. However, it could also be the fact that the first interviewer let everyone know that I did really bad and they toned down the questions although the questions did get progressively harder in my opinion.
All in all, it was a great experience and I got to visit the space needle ... which is why I wanted to come to seattle in the first place