Amazon Discover: Spring Insight Participant Review

The program was completed at home from 9am to around 4pm although this varied a little bit. Morning consisted of group panels, quizzes, etc. about Amazon culture. interviews, tips, etc. This was often followed by free form Q&As with the panelists. Then followed technical skills workshops focusing on algorithms and data structures. This was with one mentor per 7ish people and you remained with the same group thoughout the three days of the insight.

Yes, mainly focused on applying at MANGA tech companies and algorithm and data structure knowledge. Included knowledge of common data structures in interviews (e.g. trees, graphs, ties, arrays, bitfields, linked lists, hash tables, etc.) and common algorithms (e.g. caching and cache eviction strategies). Would have been nice to separate 1st year BEng students from 2nd year MEng students who had covered some of the basics Then focused on how to apply these in a timed technical interview using common leetcode style problems. Your solutions were then reviewed by the SDE and feedback given.

Insight mainly focused on those who wanted to become SDEs, which considering the title of the internship makes perfect sense. I believe there are different insight days for people who wanted to focus on other areas of the business However the panelists were from a range of areas and their work often came up during panel discussions. There was some discussion about the different business areas within Amazon although this wasn't in much detail.

Culture was covered throughout the insight week. Panels mainly focused on the Amazon leadership principles and speakers often emphasised how often these contributed to their daily work. There was also some time dedicated to equality, diversity and inclusion at Amazon including a panel on the various affinity groups in the company and what activities these groups do. Panels were good and enjoyable, even if we couldn't see any other students due to the event beinn virtual.

I enjoyed the event quite, especially the panels and the technical workshops. However, it was often hard to enjoy interacting with other students who we could not see and did not know. This made it awkward to explain your solution to a problem. There were some teething problems however these were quickly overcome. Technical workshops were also very good, especially since they used AWS tools to complete them. SDEs were obviously very knowledgeable and open to answering questions

Yes

Leetcode, then Leetcode, then even more Leetcode, and finish with more leetcode. The technical side of the interviews are heavily focused on solving these problems, especially on paper without an IDE, linting, test cases, etc. Also focus on the Amazon Leadership Principles shown on the website. Your answers to non technical questions will be graded based on these principles, and we were told to try and include as many of them as possible. Also look at videos of people from Amazon explaining the principles.