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How to prepare for a software engineer interview at Amazon: the process, the Leadership Principles, and the questions to expect.

Updated 2026-09

Overview

Amazon interviews are structured around the Leadership Principles. Every behavioral answer is probed for a specific principle, and the coding and system design rounds still expect you to tie your work back to customer impact and data.

Interview process

Online assessment: 1-2 coding problems (often two-sum-style + a harder one) and sometimes a work-style simulation.
Phone screen: 1 coding round with an engineer, sharing screen in a shared editor.
Onsite: 4-5 rounds — typically 2 coding, 1 system design, and 1-2 behavioral deep-dives on Leadership Principles.
Bar raiser: one interviewer trained to protect the hiring bar across teams; they have veto power.

What Amazon looks for

Customer obsession — start from the customer and work backward.
Ownership — think long-term and act on behalf of the whole company.
Bias for action — make decisions with incomplete data and ship.
Dive deep — understand the details behind any metric you cite.
Deliver results — focus on the right inputs and hit commitments.

Common questions

Tell me about a time you took a calculated risk that paid off (or didn't).
Describe a project where you had to dive deep into data to find the root cause.
When did you disagree with a decision and how did you handle it?
Coding: tree/trie/graph problems and an OOD question (design an elevator, a parking lot).
System design: design a URL shortener, a rate limiter, or an order-management system.

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DSA problems at Amazon

System design at Amazon

Design a URL Shortener (like bit.ly)Design Uber (Ride-Hailing)Design Netflix (Video Streaming)Design Instagram (Photo & Feed)Design WhatsApp (Chat Messaging)Design YouTube (Video Sharing)Design Twitter (Timeline & Feed)Design Google Drive (File Storage & Sync)Design a Distributed Rate Limiter Design a News Feed (Social Feed)Design Ticketmaster (Ticket Booking)Design a Distributed Cache Design a Typeahead Suggestion Service

Amazon by role

Senior Frontend Engineer Senior Backend Engineer Staff Engineer Full Stack Engineer AI Engineer AI/FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer)Machine Learning Engineer Engineering Manager New Grad Software Engineer