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Amazon Machine Learning Engineer Interview Questions

Review this list of 46 Amazon Machine Learning Engineer interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    109 answers
    Video answer for 'Tell me about a time when you made short-term sacrifices for long-term gains.'
    +101

    "Recently, I had to make a decision that I could automate a part of a process now and help the operations team reducing 9 hours of manual work to 60 minutes for one client. The second option was to fully automate the end to end process that would take 4 weeks of development, but fully automate the process and that could be rolled out across the board. The process was to change the member's paperless preference to paper when a sent email gets bounced 3 times in a row and inform her with a paper"

    Anonymous Aardvark - "Recently, I had to make a decision that I could automate a part of a process now and help the operations team reducing 9 hours of manual work to 60 minutes for one client. The second option was to fully automate the end to end process that would take 4 weeks of development, but fully automate the process and that could be rolled out across the board. The process was to change the member's paperless preference to paper when a sent email gets bounced 3 times in a row and inform her with a paper"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +5 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    94 answers
    +90

    "My approach to dealing with difficult stakeholders has always been: Engage - Directly engage with the stakeholder, meet or chat Listen - Listen to what they have to say, patiently. Understand - Understand their POV, even if it is impossible at some times Ask - Ask clarifying questions. Why? When? What? Engage again - Keep them in the loop until there is closure For example, we were in the final stages of a very important, strategic project for our organization. I was leading th"

    Jane D. - "My approach to dealing with difficult stakeholders has always been: Engage - Directly engage with the stakeholder, meet or chat Listen - Listen to what they have to say, patiently. Understand - Understand their POV, even if it is impossible at some times Ask - Ask clarifying questions. Why? When? What? Engage again - Keep them in the loop until there is closure For example, we were in the final stages of a very important, strategic project for our organization. I was leading th"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +8 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    40 answers
    Video answer for 'Edit distance'
    +32

    "from collections import deque def updateword(words, startword, end_word): if end_word not in words: return None # Early exit if end_word is not in the dictionary queue = deque([(start_word, 0)]) # (word, steps) visited = set([start_word]) # Keep track of visited words while queue: word, steps = queue.popleft() if word == end_word: return steps # Found the target word, return steps for i in range(len(word)): "

    叶 路. - "from collections import deque def updateword(words, startword, end_word): if end_word not in words: return None # Early exit if end_word is not in the dictionary queue = deque([(start_word, 0)]) # (word, steps) visited = set([start_word]) # Keep track of visited words while queue: word, steps = queue.popleft() if word == end_word: return steps # Found the target word, return steps for i in range(len(word)): "See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +3 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    47 answers
    Video answer for 'Tell me about a time when you worked on a project with a tight deadline.'
    +43

    "A clarifying question: Is this question asking about when I met a tight deadline in a project or how did I manage a project that had a tight deadline? The answer uploaded to this question is good, I would also add 'creating a critical path from overall project schedule and then making sure that none of the deliverables in the critical path are sacrificed in order to meet the tight deadline' as an action taken."

    Ushita S. - "A clarifying question: Is this question asking about when I met a tight deadline in a project or how did I manage a project that had a tight deadline? The answer uploaded to this question is good, I would also add 'creating a critical path from overall project schedule and then making sure that none of the deliverables in the critical path are sacrificed in order to meet the tight deadline' as an action taken."See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +5 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    126 answers
    Video answer for 'Tell me about yourself.'
    +118

    "As you know, this is the most important question for any interview. Here is a structure I like to follow, Start with 'I'm currently a SDE/PM/TPM etc with XYZ company.... ' Mention how you got into PM/TPM/SDE field (explaining your journey) Mention 1 or 2 accomplishments Mention what you do outside work (blogging, volunteer etc) Share why are you looking for a new role Ask the interviewer if they have any questions or will like to dive deep into any of your experience"

    Bipin R. - "As you know, this is the most important question for any interview. Here is a structure I like to follow, Start with 'I'm currently a SDE/PM/TPM etc with XYZ company.... ' Mention how you got into PM/TPM/SDE field (explaining your journey) Mention 1 or 2 accomplishments Mention what you do outside work (blogging, volunteer etc) Share why are you looking for a new role Ask the interviewer if they have any questions or will like to dive deep into any of your experience"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +17 more
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  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    28 answers
    Video answer for 'Tell me about a time when you solved a complex problem and how you went about it.'
    +12

    "I work at a startup that makes software for Law Enforcement and the FBI. Our product analyzes calls being made by prison inmates and "listens" for predictors of violence and criminal behavior. Our clients are some of the top state prisons in the country. Recently one of the largest states in the country decided to evaluate our product for their prison system. I demo'd the product to the officers and they seemed to like everything. During the presentation they asked us if the product was ADA com"

    Aabid S. - "I work at a startup that makes software for Law Enforcement and the FBI. Our product analyzes calls being made by prison inmates and "listens" for predictors of violence and criminal behavior. Our clients are some of the top state prisons in the country. Recently one of the largest states in the country decided to evaluate our product for their prison system. I demo'd the product to the officers and they seemed to like everything. During the presentation they asked us if the product was ADA com"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +6 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    60 answers
    Video answer for 'What is the project you are most proud of?'
    +53

    "I was working for my friend building streams at venues across the Chicago land area for FGC (fighting game tournaments), I adjusted and engineered his equipment to be set up permanently that's until covid came around at least. I used OBS to give visual appearances to stream watchers. So we're talking about subscribe, follow, and donation notifications and things of that nature for viewers to know they contributed in one of those ways. I set up proper sign-up scheduling for participants to lock t"

    Ayinde B. - "I was working for my friend building streams at venues across the Chicago land area for FGC (fighting game tournaments), I adjusted and engineered his equipment to be set up permanently that's until covid came around at least. I used OBS to give visual appearances to stream watchers. So we're talking about subscribe, follow, and donation notifications and things of that nature for viewers to know they contributed in one of those ways. I set up proper sign-up scheduling for participants to lock t"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +13 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    4 answers

    "For any project based questions, it is important to structure your response clearly, showcasing your thought process, technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and how your work added value. Besides the STAR method, you can also use this kind of framework: 1. Start by selecting a relevant project (related to the role) Give the project background and what specific problem it solved. 2. Align the project's objective and your role Be specific about your role: were you the le"

    Malay K. - "For any project based questions, it is important to structure your response clearly, showcasing your thought process, technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and how your work added value. Besides the STAR method, you can also use this kind of framework: 1. Start by selecting a relevant project (related to the role) Give the project background and what specific problem it solved. 2. Align the project's objective and your role Be specific about your role: were you the le"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +9 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    70 answers
    +60

    "I follow a variation of the RICE framework when prioritizing how I ship product features. I start by looking at: Reach: Because the customer segmentation across our product portfolio is so similar, I tend to hold a lot of weight on product features that will maximize our customer reach with a minimal LOE. Impact: After establishing which customer segments will benefit from the product feature, I determine the urgency and estimated impact on each customer segment based on customer i"

    Ashley C. - "I follow a variation of the RICE framework when prioritizing how I ship product features. I start by looking at: Reach: Because the customer segmentation across our product portfolio is so similar, I tend to hold a lot of weight on product features that will maximize our customer reach with a minimal LOE. Impact: After establishing which customer segments will benefit from the product feature, I determine the urgency and estimated impact on each customer segment based on customer i"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +10 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    31 answers
    +26

    "We can use dictionary to store cache items so that our read / write operations will be O(1). Each time we read or update an existing record, we have to ensure the item is moved to the back of the cache. This will allow us to evict the first item in the cache whenever the cache is full and we need to add new records also making our eviction O(1) Instead of normal dictionary, we will use ordered dictionary to store cache items. This will allow us to efficiently move items to back of the cache a"

    Alfred O. - "We can use dictionary to store cache items so that our read / write operations will be O(1). Each time we read or update an existing record, we have to ensure the item is moved to the back of the cache. This will allow us to evict the first item in the cache whenever the cache is full and we need to add new records also making our eviction O(1) Instead of normal dictionary, we will use ordered dictionary to store cache items. This will allow us to efficiently move items to back of the cache a"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +6 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    11 answers
    +8

    "In my time at Snapp! I was in charge of communicating the product backlog to our CEO. We had a shared Jira board that he had access to and I made specifically for him. One day he saw me in the office and said he doesn’t know anything about our backlog and that’s because I failed to communicate with him. I got upset at first because of the fact that I made the dashboard exclusively for him. But I tried to ask questions to understand his point of view in depth. He then mentioned he doesn't have t"

    Ra R. - "In my time at Snapp! I was in charge of communicating the product backlog to our CEO. We had a shared Jira board that he had access to and I made specifically for him. One day he saw me in the office and said he doesn’t know anything about our backlog and that’s because I failed to communicate with him. I got upset at first because of the fact that I made the dashboard exclusively for him. But I tried to ask questions to understand his point of view in depth. He then mentioned he doesn't have t"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +9 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    4 answers
    +1

    "Situation - A time I dealt with conflict while on a team was while I was working at Shopify on physical and digital gift card refund point of sale solutions. The situation was that we were dealing with complex technical constraints including not changing particular UI components behavior to act as they should be intended. On the refund screen, the existing design was using a toggle on the same screen to bring up a modal for gift card selection to either select digital or physical options. Thi"

    Ben G. - "Situation - A time I dealt with conflict while on a team was while I was working at Shopify on physical and digital gift card refund point of sale solutions. The situation was that we were dealing with complex technical constraints including not changing particular UI components behavior to act as they should be intended. On the refund screen, the existing design was using a toggle on the same screen to bring up a modal for gift card selection to either select digital or physical options. Thi"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +5 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    8 answers
    +5

    "t"

    Srikhar S. - "t"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +4 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    66 answers
    Video answer for 'Move all zeros to the end of an array.'
    +61

    "Initialize left pointer: Set a left pointer left to 0. Iterate through the array: Iterate through the array from left to right. If the current element is not 0, swap it with the element at the left pointer and increment left. Time complexity: O(n). The loop iterates through the entire array once, making it linear time. Space complexity: O(1). The algorithm operates in-place, modifying the input array directly without using additional data structures. "

    Avon T. - "Initialize left pointer: Set a left pointer left to 0. Iterate through the array: Iterate through the array from left to right. If the current element is not 0, swap it with the element at the left pointer and increment left. Time complexity: O(n). The loop iterates through the entire array once, making it linear time. Space complexity: O(1). The algorithm operates in-place, modifying the input array directly without using additional data structures. "See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +4 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    1 answer

    "performance issues and sudden spikes on input requests by scaling techniques and optimization."

    Srini K. - "performance issues and sudden spikes on input requests by scaling techniques and optimization."See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +6 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    9 answers
    +6

    "DFS with check of an already seen node in the graph would work from collections import deque, defaultdict from typing import List def iscourseloopdfs(idcourse: int, graph: defaultdict[list]) -> bool: stack = deque([(id_course)]) seen_courses = set() while stack: print(stack) curr_course = stack.pop() if currcourse in seencourses: return True seencourses.add(currcourse) for dependency in graph[curr_course]: "

    Gabriele G. - "DFS with check of an already seen node in the graph would work from collections import deque, defaultdict from typing import List def iscourseloopdfs(idcourse: int, graph: defaultdict[list]) -> bool: stack = deque([(id_course)]) seen_courses = set() while stack: print(stack) curr_course = stack.pop() if currcourse in seencourses: return True seencourses.add(currcourse) for dependency in graph[curr_course]: "See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +4 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    6 answers
    +3

    " The Situation A few months ago, our trading platform started experiencing significant latency issues during peak trading hours. This latency was affecting our ability to process real-time market data and execute trades efficiently, potentially leading to substantial financial losses and missed opportunities. Identifying the Problem The first step was to identify the root cause of the latency. I organized a team meeting with our data engineers, DevOps, and network specialists to gather"

    Scott S. - " The Situation A few months ago, our trading platform started experiencing significant latency issues during peak trading hours. This latency was affecting our ability to process real-time market data and execute trades efficiently, potentially leading to substantial financial losses and missed opportunities. Identifying the Problem The first step was to identify the root cause of the latency. I organized a team meeting with our data engineers, DevOps, and network specialists to gather"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +3 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    7 answers
    +3

    "General Approach (using Max-Heap) Use a max-heap (priority queue) of size k. For each point: Compute the distance to P. Push it into the heap. If heap size > k, remove the farthest point. The heap will contain the k closest points to P. import java.util.*; public class KClosestPoints { static class Point { int x, y; public Point(int x, int y) { this.x = x; this.y = y; } // Euclidean distance squared (no need to take square root) p"

    Khushbu R. - "General Approach (using Max-Heap) Use a max-heap (priority queue) of size k. For each point: Compute the distance to P. Push it into the heap. If heap size > k, remove the farthest point. The heap will contain the k closest points to P. import java.util.*; public class KClosestPoints { static class Point { int x, y; public Point(int x, int y) { this.x = x; this.y = y; } // Euclidean distance squared (no need to take square root) p"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +2 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    4 answers
    +1

    "in simple words, linear regression helps in predicting the value whereas logistics regression helps in predicting the binary classification. But lets talk through some example Linear regression model: E-commerce website pricing recommendation engine is built on linear regression model where we do have some variables such as competitor price, internal economics and consumer demand etc when we put this in a supervised learning model, it helps in predicting prices Logistics regression model"

    Anonymous Aardvark - "in simple words, linear regression helps in predicting the value whereas logistics regression helps in predicting the binary classification. But lets talk through some example Linear regression model: E-commerce website pricing recommendation engine is built on linear regression model where we do have some variables such as competitor price, internal economics and consumer demand etc when we put this in a supervised learning model, it helps in predicting prices Logistics regression model"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Concept
    +1 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    2 answers

    "In 2019, I was given a very important problem to solve. In a team of 3 we had to build a mobility assist device. The customer segment we would go for was something we could decide. The project was very close to me as I had lost someone I loved because of cancer and I saw how reduced mobility was a huge pain point in not being able to do physical activities. My team could only think of elderly people as the main target market. As the Head of Product what I did was: 1) I helped them dive even d"

    Soumya S. - "In 2019, I was given a very important problem to solve. In a team of 3 we had to build a mobility assist device. The customer segment we would go for was something we could decide. The project was very close to me as I had lost someone I loved because of cancer and I saw how reduced mobility was a huge pain point in not being able to do physical activities. My team could only think of elderly people as the main target market. As the Head of Product what I did was: 1) I helped them dive even d"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Behavioral
    +3 more
Showing 1-20 of 46