Software Development Engineer II (L5), AWS Elastic Block Store (EBS)

Amazon

Given a graph represented as an adjacency list, write a function to perform a Depth-First Search (DFS) traversal starting from a given node. The function should print each visited node. Also, provide an example graph and demonstrate how your function would traverse it. Explain the time and space complexity of your solution. For example, consider the following graph: { 0: [1, 2], 1: [2], 2: [0, 3], 3: [3] } If we start the DFS traversal from node 2, the expected output would be: 2, 0, 1, 3 (or another valid DFS traversal order). Your function should: Take the graph (adjacency list) and a starting node as input. Implement DFS traversal. Print each visited node. Correctly handle cycles to avoid infinite loops. Analyze and state the time and space complexity of your implementation.

Amazon

Let's explore your problem-solving skills with a practical scenario. Imagine you're building a feature for an e-commerce website that recommends products to users based on their past purchases. The system currently uses a simple algorithm: it identifies the products most frequently bought by users with similar purchase histories and suggests those. However, you've noticed a few issues: Lack of Novelty: The recommendations are often too obvious or repetitive. Users who bought coffee are constantly recommended coffee, even though they might be interested in other related items like filters, mugs, or coffee makers. Cold Start Problem: New users with limited purchase history receive generic recommendations that aren't very helpful. Ignoring User Context: The system doesn't consider factors like the time of year (e.g., recommending winter coats in July) or current trends. Your task is to enhance the recommendation system to address these issues. Describe your approach, considering both algorithmic improvements and data enrichment strategies. Provide specific examples of how you would: Incorporate a measure of diversity to introduce novelty into the recommendations. Handle the cold start problem for new users. Leverage additional data sources (e.g., product descriptions, user reviews, social media trends) to improve recommendation accuracy and relevance. Explain what machine learning algorithms and evaluation metrics you would use to validate your improvements. How would you A/B test your changes to ensure they are positively impacting user engagement and sales?

Amazon

Describe a time when you and a teammate had a fundamental disagreement about a project. What was the disagreement about? How did you approach resolving the disagreement? What was the outcome, and what did you learn from the experience?