INTERVIEW PREP · US AND INDIA
Amazon software engineer interview
The rounds at each level, what interviewers score, the Leadership Principles, and the questions candidates report, linked to problems you can solve here with the editor, walkthrough video and solutions in four languages.
Levels
| AlgoRung level | Amazon title | Experience | Interviews after screening | Design rounds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SDE 1 | SDE I (L4) | New grad to about 2 years | about 5 | Yes |
| SDE 2 | SDE II (L5) | About 2 to 5 years | about 6 | Yes |
| SDE 3 | SDE III / Senior SDE (L6) | Senior, about 5 to 10 years | about 5 | Yes |
| SDE 4 | Principal SDE (L7) and above | Staff, principal and above | about 5 | Yes |
The rounds, in order
Pick your level above to see only your rounds. Each step links to a guide on how that round is scored.
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Online assessment · 90 min
A timed test with two coding problems (easy-medium to medium) plus a work-style survey tied to the Leadership Principles; new-grad versions add a work simulation, making the block 2 to 3.5 hours.
SDE 1, SDE 2
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Phone / recruiter screen · 60 min
Experienced hires usually get one live coding screen that also includes Leadership Principle questions; new grads often go straight from the OA to the final loop.
SDE 2, SDE 3, SDE 4
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Coding (DSA) × 2 · 55 min
Each round is usually one or two medium problems (sometimes hard), and Leadership Principle questions open or close every technical round.
All levels
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Low-level design / machine coding · 55 min
Object-oriented design such as a parking lot or a coupon system is common for junior candidates and sometimes shows up in the Bar Raiser round.
SDE 1, SDE 2
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System design (HLD) · 60 min
System design is standard from SDE II and increasingly shows up in SDE I loops; SDE III and above often get two design rounds.
SDE 2, SDE 3, SDE 4
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Behavioral · 60 min
A round focused on Leadership Principles: four to six STAR stories, each mapped to one or two principles, with detailed follow-up probing.
All levels
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Bar raiser · 60 min
A trained interviewer from outside the hiring team, usually not identified to you, who checks whether you raise the company-wide bar and can block a hire.
All levels
ScreeningCodingDesignBehavioralDecision
What interviewers look for
- Concrete STAR stories with your own actions and measurable results, not what 'we' did
- Depth when probed on the same story
- Customer Obsession and Ownership, which Bar Raisers reportedly push on hardest
- Working, readable code with edge cases and complexity analysis
- Writing and running your own tests without being asked
- A clean object model that extends well in LLD
- Scalability, failure handling and operational thinking in HLD
Topics to focus on
Weighted by what candidates say comes up and by the reported questions below.
Behavioral: Leadership Principles
Each interviewer gets two to four principles to test and asks STAR questions about them, even in coding and design rounds. Interviewers write down quotes as evidence and argue hire or no-hire in a debrief run by the Bar Raiser.
Customer ObsessionCustomer focus
Start from a real user problem and show how your decision changed something for them.
- Describe a time you changed a plan because of what you learned about the user.
- Tell me about a time you had to balance a customer need against a technical constraint.
OwnershipOwnership
Show you took responsibility beyond your task: you noticed, you acted, you followed through.
- Tell me about a time you took on something outside your responsibilities.
- Tell me about a time you made a decision that hurt in the short term but helped in the long term.
- Describe a mistake you made that reached production. How did you handle it?
Invent and SimplifyInvention and simplification
Show a simpler or new way of doing something and the measurable result.
- Tell me about a time you simplified a complex process or system.
- Describe an idea of yours that the team adopted.
- Tell me about the most ambitious project you have proposed.
Are Right, A LotDiving deep · Ambiguity and judgment
Show you went to the data or the code to find the real root cause.
- Tell me about a time you had to balance a customer need against a technical constraint.
- Describe a project where the requirements were unclear. How did you move forward?
- Tell me about a decision you made without all the data you wanted.
Learn and Be CuriousCuriosity and growth
Show something you learned on your own and how you used it at work.
- Tell me about the hardest feedback you have given or received.
- Tell me about a project that failed. What did you learn?
- Tell me about something you had to learn quickly for a project.
Hire and Develop the BestGrowing others
Show a specific person you helped grow and what changed for them.
- Tell me about a time you helped a teammate succeed.
- Tell me about someone you mentored. What changed for them?
- Describe how you assess or help hire a new team member.
Insist on the Highest StandardsHigh standards
Show you raised the bar on quality even when nobody asked, and why it mattered.
- Tell me about a time you were not satisfied with "good enough".
- Describe a time you had to choose between quality and speed.
- Describe how you assess or help hire a new team member.
Think BigInvention and simplification · Big impact and long-term thinking
Show a simpler or new way of doing something and the measurable result.
- Tell me about a time you made a decision that hurt in the short term but helped in the long term.
- Tell me about a time you simplified a complex process or system.
- Describe an idea of yours that the team adopted.
Bias for ActionSpeed and delivery
Show a hard deadline met by cutting scope wisely, not by heroics alone.
- Tell me about a time you missed a deadline.
- Tell me about a decision you made without all the data you wanted.
- Tell me about a time you delivered under a very tight deadline.
FrugalityDoing more with less
Show a result you got with limited people, time or money.
- Tell me about a time you achieved a lot with very few resources.
Earn TrustIntegrity and trust
Show you were honest when it was uncomfortable, and how you earned trust back.
- Describe a mistake you made that reached production. How did you handle it?
- Tell me about a time you had to tell someone something they did not want to hear.
- Describe how you built trust with a new team or stakeholder.
Dive DeepDiving deep · Ambiguity and judgment
Show you went to the data or the code to find the real root cause.
- Tell me about a time you had to balance a customer need against a technical constraint.
- Describe a project where the requirements were unclear. How did you move forward?
- Tell me about a decision you made without all the data you wanted.
Have Backbone; Disagree and CommitDisagreement and candor
Disagree with data, respectfully, then commit fully once the decision is made.
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager. What happened?
- Describe a decision you argued against but then had to carry out.
- Tell me about the hardest feedback you have given or received.
Deliver ResultsSpeed and delivery
Show a hard deadline met by cutting scope wisely, not by heroics alone.
- Tell me about a time you missed a deadline.
- Tell me about a decision you made without all the data you wanted.
- Tell me about a time you delivered under a very tight deadline.
Strive to be Earth's Best EmployerBig impact and long-term thinking
Show you thought beyond the next sprint and made a bet with a long payoff.
- Tell me about a time you made a decision that hurt in the short term but helped in the long term.
- Describe an idea of yours that the team adopted.
- Describe a project that needed several teams. How did you get them aligned?
Success and Scale Bring Broad ResponsibilityBig impact and long-term thinking
Show you thought beyond the next sprint and made a bet with a long payoff.
- Tell me about a time you made a decision that hurt in the short term but helped in the long term.
- Describe an idea of yours that the team adopted.
- Describe a project that needed several teams. How did you get them aligned?
All behavioral questions · Write your STAR stories in the story bank
Coding questions candidates report
Each links to the AlgoRung problem: write-up, animated walkthrough, solutions in Java, Python, C++ and JavaScript, and an editor with hidden tests. Shared questions show the other companies that ask them.
- Number of Islands Medium Graphs also Microsoft, Meta, Goldman Sachs +1
- Two Sum Easy Arrays & Hashing also Microsoft, Atlassian, Swiggy
- Merge k Sorted Lists Hard Heaps also Microsoft
- Trapping Rain Water Hard Arrays & Hashing also Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Salesforce +1
- Course Schedule Medium Graphs also Google, Netflix, Uber +1
- Top K Frequent Words Medium Heaps also Goldman Sachs
- Meeting Rooms II Medium Intervals also Meta
- Binary Tree Zigzag Level Order Traversal Medium Trees & BST also Walmart Global Tech
- Binary Tree Maximum Path Sum Hard Trees & BST also Google, Adobe
- Serialize and Deserialize Binary Tree Hard Trees & BST also Meta, LinkedIn, Oracle
- Copy List with Random Pointer Medium Linked List also Microsoft, Meta
- Reverse Nodes in k-Group Hard Linked List also Microsoft
- Reconstruct Itinerary Hard Graphs also Airbnb
- Word Ladder Hard Graphs also Google, LinkedIn
- Alien Dictionary Hard Graphs also Meta, Airbnb
- Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters Medium Arrays & Hashing also Netflix, Adobe, Flipkart
- Group Anagrams Medium Arrays & Hashing also Meta, Oracle
- Gas Station Medium Arrays & Hashing also Microsoft
- Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock Easy Dynamic Programming also Apple, Netflix, Walmart Global Tech
- Daily Temperatures Medium Monotonic Stack
- Koko Eating Bananas Medium Binary Search also Goldman Sachs
- Flood Fill Easy Graphs
- Distribute Coins in Binary Tree Medium Trees & BST also PhonePe
- LRU Cache Medium Design Data Structures also Microsoft, Apple, Netflix +4
No questions match.
Amazon coding questions by topic · Amazon SDE 1 interview · Amazon SDE 2 interview · Amazon senior interview · Amazon staff interview
Also reported, not on AlgoRung yet (2)
Longest Palindromic Substring · Letter Combinations of a Phone Number
Design questions
SDE I loops lean toward object-oriented LLD, though light system design now appears in most SDE I loops. From SDE II, HLD is standard; SDE III and above may get two rounds that go deeper on non-functional requirements. Prompts are often framed around retail or AWS problems.
- Reported: Design an API rate limiter Rate limiter · walkthrough Practise on the board
- Reported: Design the store front page to handle 10x traffic E-commerce (Amazon) · walkthrough
- Reported: Design a hotel booking system Movie booking · walkthrough
Also reported: Design a parking lot (LLD) · Design a warehouse / fulfillment system · Design an A/B experimentation platform
Amazon system design questions in detail · How to answer any design question: the LADDER method
Worth knowing
- Leadership Principle questions show up in nearly every round, so expect 10 to 12 of the 16 principles to be covered across the loop.
- Recent loops include a question about how you used AI tools; specific uses and how you checked the output reportedly score better.
- AI is not allowed in live coding. One guide reports the redesigned OA includes an AI-assisted task.
- A debrief can end in a downleveled offer (for example SDE II instead of SDE III) instead of a rejection.
- New-grad cycles in 2025 often took 3 to 4 months from OA to decision.
Interviewing at Amazon?
Add the date and your level. AlgoRung builds a plan back from the interview day, schedules revisions before it, and counts problems you have already solved for every company that asks them.
Sources
Written in our own words from these public pages and candidate reports, checked November 2026. Company names are trademarks of their owners.