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: 4 to 8 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, Principal)
- Senior Principal SDE (L8, Sr Principal)
- Distinguished Engineer (L10, Distinguished)
The Amazon SDE interview, round by round
Recruiter screen (30 to 45 min · call)
A short call with a recruiter, usually before anything technical happens. They walk through your resume, confirm which organization and team the role sits in, ask what level you are targeting, and check your timeline and pay expectations. It is rarely scored the way a real round is, but the level the recruiter writes down at the end shapes everything after it, because an SDE III loop is a genuinely different interview from an SDE II loop. This is also where they explain the Leadership Principles and tell you that behavioral questions run through every single round, which is a real instruction and worth taking literally. Amazon recruiters tend to answer direct questions directly, so use the time.
- Settle the level in this call. Ask which level the role is opened at and say which one you want. Changing level later normally means redoing rounds or accepting a down-level offer at the end, and both cost you weeks.
- Ask which organization the team sits in. AWS, Ads, Retail, Devices and the health and grocery businesses all run the same official loop but weight coding, distributed systems and operational depth differently. Knowing the org tells you what to practise.
- Give a range with a reason attached. Amazon works from bands and a level-specific cap on base pay, so a single number this early tends to become your ceiling. A range you can justify keeps the conversation open until you have an offer to negotiate against.
Online assessment (2 to 3 hours · HackerRank)
A timed, auto-graded stage that you sit on your own, usually within about a week of getting the link, and normally delivered through HackerRank. In 2026 it is no longer coding only. Most candidates get two coding problems in roughly 70 to 90 minutes, then a work simulation of around 50 minutes, then a shorter work style survey, and some SDE II batches also get a short design-scenario module of about 20 minutes. The coding part carries the most weight and a weak score there is very hard to recover from, but Amazon reads the other parts as real signal too. Treat the whole thing as a round, because it filters you out before any human reads your resume.
- Hidden test cases decide your score. The grader runs cases you never see, so handling an empty input, a single element and an integer that overflows is worth more than tidy code. Spend the last five minutes walking your solution through the awkward inputs by hand.
- The work simulation is a simulated inbox. You get emails from a manager and two teammates, a log dump to read, a ticket to prioritize and an annoyed stakeholder to answer. It is scored against the Leadership Principles, so choose the option that digs into the actual data and tells people the bad news early.
- Answer the work style survey consistently. It is a situational judgment test with agree and disagree sliders, and it repeats the same underlying question in different wording to catch people guessing at what they think Amazon wants to hear. Answer as yourself, and answer the same way each time a question comes back around.
Technical phone screen (45 to 60 min · shared editor)
One conversation with an Amazon engineer in a shared code editor, usually with no autocomplete and no way to run what you write. Not every candidate gets this round, since a strong OA sometimes goes straight to the loop, but most people sit it. You normally get one medium problem, sometimes two shorter ones, and at least one behavioral question mapped to a Leadership Principle inside the same hour. This is the first round where how you work is scored as heavily as what you produce, so working in silence hurts you even when the code is right. Most people who fail here fail on communication or on an edge case they never checked, and only rarely because the problem was beyond them.
- Ask about the input first. Size, ranges, duplicates, empty cases, whether it fits in memory. Two minutes of questions changes which solution is correct, and interviewers score whether you asked.
- Say the complexity out loud before you code. State the approach and its time and space cost, get a nod, then write it. Explaining only after the code is on screen is the most common way a technically fine candidate reads as unclear.
- Budget real time for the behavioral question. The interviewer has to fill in a Leadership Principle section on their written feedback whatever happens, so a story that arrives rushed in the last three minutes gets written up as thin. Leave ten minutes for it.
The onsite loop (4 to 6 rounds · one day, virtual)
The main event, run as back-to-back interviews of about an hour each on a single day, usually virtual. For SDE II a typical shape is two coding rounds, one system design round, and one round that is either a low-level or object-oriented design problem or a third coding round depending on the team. SDE III and above shift weight towards design and ownership and lighten the pure algorithm load. Every round, including the design ones, also carries Leadership Principle questions, so you are scored on two axes in every single hour. One of these interviewers is the bar raiser, and you are usually not told which.
- Two coding rounds at medium to hard. The recurring areas are hash maps, trees, graphs with BFS and DFS, sliding window, heaps and intervals, with dynamic programming showing up more at senior levels. Interviewers expect the optimal time and space and expect you to handle edge cases without being prompted.
- System design from SDE II upward. You design one real service end to end: clarify what the customer actually needs, define the API, pick a data model, then work through scale, partitioning, caching and what happens when a component fails. Do the capacity arithmetic out loud, because being asked for a number and shrugging is a common way this round goes badly.
- Behavioral questions in every round, pushed several follow-ups deep. Bring one specific story per Leadership Principle with real numbers and your own actions in it, not the team's. Interviewers keep asking what happened next and who disagreed, so a story that ends where your preparation ends leaves you improvising in front of someone trained to notice.
Debrief, bar raiser and offer (1 to 3 weeks after the loop)
After the loop every interviewer writes up detailed feedback with examples before they see anyone else's, and the debrief cannot be booked until all of it is filed. The bar raiser is a trained interviewer from outside the hiring team whose job is to protect the long-term hiring bar rather than to fill this role, and they lead the discussion and can effectively veto a hire the team wants. Because the decision is argued from written evidence, a round where you were fine but unmemorable reads as weak on paper. An even loop across every round is what clears the bar, and one standout round sitting next to one thin one usually stalls here. If the group thinks you are strong but not at the level you interviewed for, the usual outcome is a down-level offer rather than a rejection.
- Every claim in the room is backed by a quote or an example. Interviewers write down what you actually said, so a vague story with no numbers in it cannot be defended by anyone in the debrief even if the interviewer liked you.
- The bar raiser weighs Leadership Principle signal heavily. A loop with clean code and thin behavioral evidence stalls here more often than people expect, particularly at SDE II and above where ownership and judgment are the level definition.
- Expect one to three weeks, then a separate pay conversation. The debrief itself usually happens within about a week of the loop and the decision follows within another few days, then offer approval and negotiation add several more. Hiring pauses and reschedules stretch this, so ask your recruiter for a date rather than guessing.
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?
Median total compensation for an SDE II is about $270k a year in Seattle, made up of roughly $178k base plus around $90k a year of RSUs, with a modest target bonus. Amazon vests 5/15/40/40, so year one pays far less than a flat quarter of the grant, and the year-1 and year-2 sign-on bonuses exist to bridge exactly that gap.
How long does the Amazon interview process take?
Usually four to eight weeks end to end. Most of that is the gap between stages rather than the interviews themselves: a recruiter screen, then the online assessment, then a wait for the phone screen, then scheduling the virtual onsite, and finally the debrief where the bar raiser has real weight. Candidates who already have a team lined up can move faster, and roles with tight headcount can run longer.
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.