Jimmy got an offer as a Software development engineer at Amazon

Seeing how new products are scaled for the masses.

Stint

I took 6 months in total to prepare. For the first 3 months I prepared for about 2-3 hours a day, then for the last 3 months I prepped about 7 hours a day. Aside from a lot of Leetcode practice, I broke down the fundamental concepts of algorithms and data structures, and had lots of preparation behind behavioural questions. The IGotAnOffer articles really helped me to see the bigger picture, especially with Amazon LP questions and System design. I prepared very thorough answers, which covered many of the example behavioural questions listed on the IGotAnOffer Amazon interview prep guide. Time spent overall: 60% leetcode, 20% system design, 30% behavioural.

Understanding how some of the coding concepts worked, particularly dynamic programming and graphs.

Two of my interview questions ended up being dynamic programming questions.

As odd as it sounds and as many times as candidates have heard this advice, always speak to the interviewer as if you were delivering 5-star hotel service. You want to constantly speak out loud, explaining your thought processes during the interview. Don't write a single line of code until you can clarify any vague requirements, understand what inputs and outputs are given, identify edge cases, and explain the initial approach (even if it's brute force). It might feel (internally) like you're dragging it out, but it's 1000 times better than diving deep into coding up the perfect solution, stuck in your own world. The interviewers at every round will also tell you this, so it's super important to engage.