This student's background is in software engineering, and he had enough questions to brush up on, and BQ had done several rounds of simulations with me in advance, so his overall status was relatively stable. Throughout the whole onsite, I can obviously feel that this year's Amazon SDE Intern places greater emphasis on communication, transparency in thinking, and trade-off awareness than simply writing code.
Below we take you through the review by four rounds, and also talk about how we did voice assists off the field to hold the tempo all the way through.
Round 1｜Kokumin-chan (Coding + BQ)
This round was actually the most "communication demanding" round of the whole show.
The first 30 minutes were BQ, like. Learn and Be Curious,Dive Deep Such are asked in particular detail.
We had practiced the structure of "Event → Your Thoughts → Your Actions → Reflections" in our previous simulations, and he performed quite consistently on the spot.
Coding (LC125 + LC409)
The questions aren't hard, but the pitfalls are--
➡ Interviewer won't let you write directly, says you have to spell it out first: "Why DFS + memo or DP? what are their tradeoffs?"
This is also a common style among flax engineers: see if you can clearly express the "why".
He was a little nervous in the beginning and got a little bit wrapped up when he got to the DP, but luckily he was able to get to the end of it. DP code written out in fullThe edge case is also covered.
I gave two key tips with my voice on the side:"Bottlenecks first, then reasons for choice.","Emphasizing Complexity Differences".
Overall rating: over the line, but communication is slightly unfortunate.
Round 2｜Next Door DS Group SDM (Coding + BQ)
This round falls under the category of Luck + Props are on point.
The first half of the BQ (25min) asked very detailed questions about how you resolve team conflicts / how to deep dive a data quality incident and such.
We've practiced these types of questions in advance that are on the DS/DE style, and he spoke very logically this round.
Coding: LeetCode 1152
He is in great shape, not only writing optimal solutions, but also visualizing his own ideas in between.
With 15 minutes left, the interviewer said "that's good" and asked him to write another version in Trie.
This round is a clear plus:
- Clean code
- Ideas are open to interpretation
- Assertiveness
- Interviewer gives follow up i.e. writing
Round 3｜India Group Manager (System Design + BQ)
This round was one where he felt he played average, but from what I could see from the sidelines, it was actually pretty good.
The manager's style is typical: he wants to hear your trade-off ideas, not your "optimal solution".
Design Title: Least Recent Play Song List
Users continue to order and listen to songs, and need to return the last 20 songs they've listened to in real time.
He walks:
- Bidirectional chained table + hash table
- Sliding Window Ideas
- Drawing data streams as we talk
I had a reminder next to him to emphasize:
➡ "Why not use a queue?"
➡ "How do you maintain consistency under concurrent access?"
➡ "Boundary: What if the user clears the playlist?"
He made the trade-off quite transparent, which in the Manager's eyes is already a good indicator of "cooperation and discussion".
Round 4｜Korean Little Brother (Coding + BQ)
The BQ section is just as routine, but the questions are more follow-up:
"Why did you do it?" "How do you review it afterward?" This very inquisitive style of asking for details.
Coding: Anagram Product Frequency
Input.
- A wordlist.
cats, csat, tsac, in, the, bat, tab
- A sentence list
["cats in the","bat incsat"]
Logic Requirements:
For each sentence, count the number of anagrams for each word in the sentence and do the product.
Example:
- cats → 2
- in → 1
- the → 1
→ first sentence = 2 * 1 * 1 = 2
→ Result = [2, 4]
He writes steadily:
- Use sorted(word) as the key
- Count first, then process the sentence
- Consider boundaries such as empty words, illegal inputs, etc.
The quality of the code in this round can shine through.
Overall review: the most critical thing about linen is not the code, it's the "transparency of thought."
If you're going to face Amazon in the future, there's only one goal the whole time--
Allow the interviewer to "see your thought process".
Code is not a priority for them, especially for SDE interviews where the following are more important:
- BQ: really more than 50% as a percentage (this student also prepared with 50% time in BQ)
- How do you explain the program
- Did you know that trade-off
- Are you able to maintain logical clarity under pressure
- Are you mature in your engineering thinking
After this process, his overall performance is more competitive than just "strong coding".
Linen is not difficult in the question is difficult, but difficult in the "expression to be professional, structure to be clear, trade-off to speak naturally.
This interview will hopefully help you get a feel for the real rhythm -not just coding, but engineering thinking.
Programhelp Coach's Perspective - The Unscripted Assist Experience
This time I assisted him to face Amazon and I gave the main one:
- Full BQ training: Adjusting the story structure sentence by sentence to make the answer more Amazon style
- Coding-assisted pacing reminders: when to explain, when to write, when to change solutions
- System Design on-site trade-off assistance
- speech implied assist: A word to wake up when stuck, without exposing or disrupting the rhythm
- All content is untraceable and undetectable
Many students can actually write code, but in a communication-focused interview like Linen, it's easy to drop the ball on presentation.
What we do is to minimize the fluctuations in your performance, so that you can consistently play 100% strength.
If you are also preparing for Amazon, Meta, Google, Stripe, HFT, Finance companies, we have corresponding VO/OA high frequency question banks, customized simulations,the full range of unmarked assisted programs, feel free to come and talk to me about your background and I'll help you make a strategy of your own.
