My Journey from TCS to SDE, Amazon!

#100Stories is a series of transformational stories of courage and indomitable will to excel, picked from the lives of tech students, particularly in India. Initiative by Programming Pathshala.

Hi everyone, my name is Vivek Panchal, I graduated in 2019 and since then I have been working at TCS as a System Development Engineer. I am an aspiring Software Engineer and have been looking for opportunities to switch to Software Development roles, be it at TCS or any other MNC or a Startup.

Recently, I received offers from a few organisations and after weighing all the factors, I have decided to move forward with Amazon and will be joining them in January’s last week.

I’d like to share my experience with Programming Pathshala’s handcrafted course “Renaissance” as well as my Interview experience with Amazon today, so let’s get into it….

I am pretty excited to join Amazon as a SDE and honestly my preparations were never really specific to crack the interview of any FAANG Company, I was open to work with any Startup or even MNC’s as a Software Development Engineer Role. I in fact, gave Interviews for more than 15 organisations out of which I got offers from two.

Interview Process at Amazon.

Speaking about my Interview experience with Amazon, I found a post on LinkedIn talking about SDE openings at Amazon and I filled the form. After a week I received Online assessment, so I gave the online assessment and was able to solve all the problems in it. It was a standard 2 question pattern with Amazon. I heard back from the recruiter 10 days later that I have been shortlisted for further rounds of interview. She was very polite and took me through the complete schedule and structure of their Interview process. There were 4 rounds of interview after the assessment and particularly for Amazon Interviews, they revolve around Data Structures, Algorithms and leadership principles. They rely significantly on leadership principles as well, so each round consists of a few questions on leadership principles apart from the Data Structure and algorithm questions.

About Programming Pathshala!

Programming Pathshala played a huge role in my success. I remember joining the course “Renaissance” around March 2021 when I came across a few posts on LinkedIn. It was hard to analyse what programmes are offered at Pathshala. I looked for all that it was offering to the students and later got in contact with Anoop. I signed up for a free trial for a few days to find out if it might be worth it. Honestly it turned out to be definitely worth it. The content was precise and up to the mark, It adheres to the requirements of the interviews which are being conducted nowadays, which includes data structures, algorithms, system design, and they also provide live classes as well as Mock Interviews. So I thought it’s a one stop solution for complete revision, and therefore I signed up for it, before that my problem solving skills were fine but I somewhere had a few voids. Programming Pathshala definitely came as a one stop solution for all my problems, it made my Interview preparations better and enhanced my problem solving skills by helping me in filling those voids. I learnt concepts like Binary Search, and it helped me in depth, like not leaving any stones unturned kind of a thing. Upon completion of the course, I felt ready for any organisation’s Interview.

My Resume Building Strategy.

For my resume building strategy, I had already framed my resume but in summers, Programming Pathshala conducted few specific sessions on Resume building. It was mostly focused on creating a resume based upon screening computers, commonly known as ATS System these days. So I made a few changes and after validation from Mentors, I began submitting it to various organisations.

My experience with the course “Renaissance”!

I will never say that the course “Renaissance” is easy, but it denotes “Completeness”, it ensures that if a person completes the course then he/she will become excellent in those skills. It comprises 3 sections and mentors suggested to complete section 1 at first, if you finish section 1 then section 2 and 3 would be like a cakewalk for you. So I went with their advice and completing section 1 itself took me 4 months and the topics were like searching, sorting, arrays, trees and all, but the questions were pretty good starting from scratch to top notch.

What kept me motivated throughout?

Apart from believing in myself and being consistent with the course, one of the most motivating factor was also that “It’s bound to happen”, be it today or tomorrow but I had made up my mind of switching my existing role as a system engineer to software development engineer, so I began dedicating at least an hour to the course everyday in the beginning and kept being consistent throughout.

You can do it too!

Before I leave, if any of you reading this blog is also aspiring to be a SDE in one of the Top-Tech companies, please be consistent with your preparations. Even if you take a break of a few days, remember to bounce back and start devoting a few hours each day for your Dream to come true!

You can also start your journey with Programming Pathshala now. Logon to www.programmingpathshala.com and take a free trial.

Have a doubt or suggestion? Reach out to us at info@programmingpathshala.com