The Amazon SDE Interview Guide
See how Amazon runs its software engineer loop: every round, what each one tests, and what each level pays. Then drill the real questions candidates report from recent loops, so nothing in the room catches you off guard.
- Loop length: 3 to 4 weeks
- Expected difficulty: Medium to hard
- Online assessment: CodeSignal
- System design: From SDE II
Amazon levels & pay
- SDE I (L4, Entry)
- SDE II (L5, Mid)
- SDE III (L6, Senior)
- Principal SDE (L7, Staff)
- Sr. Principal (L8, Sr Staff)
- Distinguished (L10, Fellow)
The Amazon SDE interview, round by round
Recruiter screen (30 min · call)
The opening conversation. Your recruiter confirms your background, the level you are targeting, your timeline, and your comp expectations, and gives you a first read on the team. It is rarely technical, but it quietly sets your level, and your level decides how hard every round after it will be.
- Anchor your level early. Aiming at SDE II versus SDE III changes the difficulty of the entire loop, so be deliberate about where you position yourself.
- Expect a light behavioral question. Even at this stage a Leadership Principle or two can surface, so have a story ready.
- Know your comp range. This is where the negotiation window first opens, and a vague answer here can cap your offer later.
Online assessment (~90 min · timed, CodeSignal)
A timed, auto-graded stage, usually two coding problems plus a work-style survey and, for some roles, a debugging or work-simulation module. It filters hard before a human ever reads your name, so it deserves genuine preparation rather than a warm-up mindset.
- Two data-structure problems against the clock. Correctness and edge cases score far higher than a clever one-liner that misses a case.
- The work-style survey maps to the Leadership Principles. Answer consistently and honestly, not the way you imagine they want to hear.
- The work-simulation rewards careful reading. The usual trap is misreading the spec, not writing the wrong code, so slow down before you type.
Technical phone screen (45 min · CoderPad)
One medium coding problem on a shared editor with an Amazon engineer. This is the first round where communication counts as much as the solution: clarifying the problem, narrating your approach, and reasoning through edge cases out loud is what separates a clear pass from a borderline call.
- Reach a working, optimal solution and talk through the trade-offs as you build it, rather than coding in silence.
- Expect a Leadership Principle question attached to the technical time; interviewers are already scoring behavioral signal here.
- Readable beats rushed. Clean, correct code that you can explain outperforms a fragile optimum you cannot defend.
The onsite loop (4 to 5 rounds · virtual)
The real evaluation: four to five back-to-back interviews, each about an hour, each pairing a technical or design task with Leadership Principle questions. It breaks into three kinds of round, and you need to be ready for all three, not just the one you are best at.
- Coding, twice. One data-structures-heavy problem and one applied. Optimal time and space is expected, with edge cases handled unprompted. The recurring themes are hash maps, trees, graphs and BFS, sliding window, and heaps.
- System design, from SDE II up. Design a real service end to end: API, data model, scaling, caching, and failure handling, with capacity math you can defend. Depth on trade-offs beats naming technologies.
- Behavioral, in every round. Mapped to the 16 Leadership Principles. Interviewers push for specifics, so bring one concrete STAR story per principle with real metrics and your exact role in the outcome.
The debrief and bar raiser (1 to 2 weeks after)
Your interviewers meet to make the call. A bar raiser, an interviewer pulled from outside the hiring team, joins specifically to protect Amazon's hiring bar and holds an effective veto. This is why consistency across every round matters as much as any single strong answer: one weak or inconsistent signal can sink an otherwise good loop.
- Leadership Principle signal is weighted heavily in the room, so a brilliant coding round with thin behavioral stories still stalls.
- Consistency beats brilliance. A steady loop clears the bar more reliably than one standout round paired with a weak one.
- Decisions take one to two weeks and stretch longer during hiring freezes or team-match steps.
How hard is the Amazon interview?
Difficulty mix: 12% easy, 52% medium, 36% hard.
How to prepare
Keep a daily coding rhythm (Weeks 1 to 4)
Code every day for the whole month. Rotate through the patterns Amazon leans on, hash maps, trees, graphs and BFS, sliding window, and heaps, starting at medium and climbing into hard as the weeks go on, always timed on a shared editor.
Prepare a story for every Leadership Principle (Weeks 1 to 2)
Draft these early so you have three weeks to rehearse them. Write one specific STAR example for each of the 16 principles, each with concrete metrics and your role, and practice delivering each in about two minutes.
Layer in system-design reps (Weeks 2 to 3)
Once your coding is warm, add system design (SDE II and up) alongside it. Work through three or four full designs end to end, scoping, API, data model, scaling, and capacity math, saying each decision aloud and preparing for follow-ups on your trade-offs.
Run full mock loops (Week 4)
In the last week, put it all together: sit a few complete loops back to back, coding, system design, and behavioral in one session each, so your focus and answers hold across four or five interviews in a row.
Recently asked
Design an LRU cache with per-key TTL and O(1) operations
About Amazon
Amazon operates across three segments, North America, International, and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Engineering hires span retail, devices, advertising, and the AWS cloud, and the bar centers on scalable systems, ownership, and the Leadership Principles.
Because so much of Amazon runs on AWS-scale infrastructure, the SDE loop leans on practical distributed-systems thinking and a values bar that carries genuine weight, more than pure algorithm speed.
Frequently asked
How many rounds is the Amazon interview?
Typically five stages: a recruiter screen, an online assessment, a technical phone screen, and a virtual onsite of four to five rounds. Every technical round also includes Leadership Principle questions.
How hard is the Amazon SDE interview?
Medium to hard. Of the questions Karavine tracks, about 36 percent rate hard, concentrated in graph problems and system design. The coding bar is beatable with focused pattern practice; the system-design round decides most senior loops.
What is the Amazon online assessment (OA)?
A timed, auto-graded stage with coding problems and, for some roles, a work-style survey and work simulation. It filters before the phone screen, so treat it as a real round, not a formality.
What are the Amazon Leadership Principles in interviews?
Sixteen principles, Ownership, Dive Deep, Bias for Action, Deliver Results, and more, that behavioral questions map to. Prepare one specific STAR story per principle with metrics and your exact role.
Does Amazon ask system design?
Yes, from SDE II and up, weighted more heavily at senior levels. Expect a full design: API, data model, scaling, caching, failure handling, and capacity math you can defend under follow-ups.
What is the Amazon SDE II (L5) salary?
Total compensation averages around $233k per year (base near $182k, plus RSUs and a year-1 sign-on). Levels range from roughly $195k at L4 to $940k at L10. Use the estimator above to model your own offer.
How long does the Amazon interview process take?
Usually three to four weeks from recruiter screen to onsite, then one to two weeks for the debrief and decision. Timelines stretch during hiring freezes or team-match steps.
What is the Amazon bar raiser?
An interviewer from outside the hiring team who joins the loop to protect the hiring bar and holds an effective veto in the debrief. Consistency across all your rounds matters as much as any single answer.
How should I prepare for the Amazon interview?
Drill the patterns Amazon repeats at medium-to-hard difficulty, build one STAR story per Leadership Principle, practice system design out loud, and aim for consistency across rounds. Karavine's Amazon pack is exactly this plan with worked solutions.
Can I reapply to Amazon after a rejection?
Yes. Amazon typically asks candidates to wait six months before reapplying to the same or a similar role. Use the gap to close the specific gaps the debrief flagged.
What coding topics does Amazon focus on?
Amazon leans on core data structures and algorithms: hash maps, trees, graphs and BFS/DFS, sliding window, heaps, and interval problems. Dynamic programming appears at senior levels. Most questions sit at LeetCode medium, with a hard reserved for the tougher rounds.
What platform is the Amazon online assessment on?
Amazon's OA is typically delivered through CodeSignal (formats vary by year and role). It combines timed coding problems with a work-style survey mapped to the Leadership Principles and, for some roles, a work-simulation module.
How many Leadership Principles does Amazon have?
Sixteen. Behavioral questions in every round map to them, so prepare one specific STAR story per principle with concrete metrics and your exact role. Ownership, Dive Deep, Bias for Action, and Deliver Results come up most often for engineers.
What is the difference between Amazon SDE II and SDE III?
SDE II (L5) is the mid-level, expected to own features end to end; SDE III (L6) is senior, expected to drive designs and influence beyond their team. The L6 loop is noticeably more design- and ownership-heavy, with two system-design rounds and deeper behavioral scrutiny.
Amazon interview questions on Karavine