Sources
Every external link this guide relies on, verified on 2026-10-19.
Every link below was checked by live search on 2026-10-19, and these are the research sources behind market findings and the plan design.
The interview loop
- Amazon SDE-1 interview experience 2026 (Reddit)
- Amazon SDE-1 fresher long-form (devsunite)
- Razorpay process (finalround.ai)
- Machine coding rubric (PracHub)
- Backend interview, six areas and the TRACE method (PracHub)
- SDE-1 prep roadmap (workat.tech)
AI interviews and contest ratings
- AI-assisted interviews (Vinit Shahdeo)
- AI-assisted coding interviews (formation.dev)
- LeetCode rating of people who pass Google algo rounds (teamblind)
Pay and hiring signals
- Fresher salary bands (joinsaarthi)
- Meesho SWE-1 pay (levels.fyi)
- Fresher tier reality (productbased.in)
DSA sheets
Study plans and cheatsheets
- Tech Interview Handbook study plan
- Tech Interview Handbook cheatsheets
- Tech Interview Handbook best practice questions
Mock interviews
Fundamentals and LLD
- KnowledgeGate fresh-interview CS bank
- GfG OS, DBMS and CN set
- InterviewBit networking questions
- Flipkart LLD questions (Reddit)
- Flipkart guide 2026 (ophyai)
Applications, referrals and open source
- developersIndia referral wiki
- hiredoor cold DM templates
- Open source to hired (opensauced)
- GitHub recruiter signal (r/developersIndia)
What was skipped on purpose
Java and Spring bootcamps, Kubernetes and AWS certificates, LeetCode hard problems for ego, "AI wrapper" portfolios, ghost-written cover letters, LinkedIn engagement bait, and the old data-engineering track. That track pointed at Azure, Snowflake and dbt roles, not backend SDE-1, so it is parked.