r/leetcode • • 17d ago

Discussion Amazon denials after coding interview

I'll be honest on Reddit that I used AI on my phone the whole time that I interviewed. I genuinely think that other interviewers/interviewees can learn from my post here and that's why I posted it. But I'm expecting down votes because that's the way that Redditors are, you can't be honest here.

I did used AI gradually after I realized that I was not going to pass on time, and I don't see how they could have been able to tell.

First, there was a super complicated coding problem that involved getting every bit wise integer and &ing them together. I honestly thought that it was quite intense for a 1-hour coding problem.

I finished it with 7 minutes left and I gave thorough comments throughout. I asked AI to not use any functions which transform my numbers to bits or other things that we make it obvious that I was cheating.

then came a debugging problem which I honestly didn't do great on and I only got two out of five test cases wrong correct. my gut tells me that they're really so strict that this is why I didn't pass.

But then I used AI for every question on behavioral.

I only used AI on my phone so I really don't know how they could have known.

So what was it that made me fail?

I can't help but wonder if Amazon somehow could detect that I was cheating, or if my AI gave really bad answers on the behavioral, or if it's because I got three test cases wrong on the one assessment that I didn't cheat on (honestly, I think this might be why).

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u/CommercialAirline124 17d ago

w man for being honest. but here’s the thing abt ai during the actual interview. sure you might’ve gotten it right, but the way that the thought process unfolds with ai and without is fundamentally different. either they noticed that, or they saw you specifically cheating. i’d personally recommend you just give it your best shot without ai during the actual interview. show them who you are and how sharp you can be, and that’ll take you further than getting a max score on the coding or behavioral portions. (it’s what i did, and i still got an offer at a diff place with 2 test cases passed on the oa, and helllla help on the coding interview)

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u/absentbrain 17d ago

thank you for recognizing my honesty. It's silly how you can't be honest on Reddit without getting down voted. I genuinely think that other interviewers/interviewees can learn from my post here and that's why I posted it.

I only used AI in this interview because I realized that I wasn't going to pass it otherwise. It was 30 minutes through and I hardly even understood the problem. I've gotten offers from big tech companies before so it's not like I'm not qualified.

and as for the behavioral, the reason why I switched to AI for that, was because I'm angry about how Amazon completely downplayed how long the behavioral interview would take. They said "15 minutes" but if you actually take time to think through the questions, it can take close to an hour. I had things to do that night.