Amazon

Official guidance

Amazon’s engineering spans retail and marketplace systems, fulfillment and logistics software, devices, advertising and the AWS cloud. Much of the work is service-oriented backend development under high load, with engineers responsible for operating what they build; the official prep pages stress scaling concepts, data stores including non-relational databases, and distributed architectures.

Relevant roles: General software engineering, Backend engineering, Distributed systems engineering, Infrastructure / platform engineering. Domains: Algorithms, Software engineering, Distributed & cloud, Databases, OS & concurrency, Networks, Interview skills.

What the sources establish

Amazon publishes separate official preparation pages for SDE II and SDE III, a page for the SDE II online assessment, and a general technical-topics page. Together they document the process (an online assessment for SDE II, a 60-minute phone screen for SDE III), loop sizes (four 55-minute interviews for SDE II, five for SDE III), system design expectations, coding evaluation criteria, and Leadership Principles behavioral interviews structured with STAR. The pages are undated, give slightly different online-assessment timings, and do not address AI tool use. Not established: team-specific variations, new-graduate and intern processes, and any rules about AI assistance.

SDE II Interview Prep
Official
Amazon (amazon.jobs). Undated page; read 2026-10-05. Read in full for this page.
Scope: Software Development Engineer II candidates: application, online assessment and interview loop
Documented by this source
- Process: application, online assessment, then an interview loop, with the outcome stated as within 5 business days of the loop
- Online assessment: 90 minutes for two coding questions, followed by 20 minutes of system design scenarios and an 8-minute multiple-choice work style survey tied to the Leadership Principles
- Online assessment rules given on the page: the timer keeps running if you exit, efficient solutions earn more than brute force, code must compile for every question to advance, recompiling needs a 15-second gap, and a list of accepted languages is provided
- Interview loop: four 55-minute interviews covering technical competencies and Leadership Principles-based competencies, with different interviewers assigned to different areas
- System design: expect at least one software systems design question; review SOA, n-tier and distributed architectures and scaling concepts such as caching, load balancing, non-relational databases, microservices and sharding
- Coding: syntactically correct code with no pseudocode, judged mainly on scalable, robust and well-tested code; three competencies are described (data structures and algorithms, problem solving on ambiguous prompts, logical and maintainable code), with a note to expect three separate interviews on them
- Coding best practices say time and space complexity will be asked in almost all questions, together with clear naming, separation of concerns and edge-case checks
- Behavioral: much of each conversation probes the Leadership Principles through past experience; each interviewer typically asks two or three behavioral questions; STAR with metrics is recommended and brain teasers are not used
- Remote interviews may run on Zoom or Amazon Chime, and a second Amazonian may join to shadow
Outside or AI tools, according to this source: Does not address AI tools. It expects syntactically correct code, suggests getting comfortable coding in Livecode without an IDE, and links guidance on using Bluescape for the design interview. Follow the instructions in your own assessment invitation.
- Undated. Its online-assessment timings differ from Amazon’s separate SDE II online-assessment page (see that source).
- Describes the standard SDE II route; specific teams, regions and programs may differ.
Open source(opens in a new tab)Link responded, 5 Oct 2026
SDE III Interview Prep
Official
Amazon (amazon.jobs). Undated page; read 2026-10-05. Read in full for this page.
Scope: Senior Software Development Engineer (SDE III) candidates
Documented by this source
- Process: application, technical phone screen, interview loop, with the outcome stated as within 5 business days of the loop
- Technical phone screen: 60 minutes with a senior leader, about half on Leadership Principles and half on coding problems and system design
- Interview loop: five 55-minute interviews covering technical and Leadership Principles-based competencies
- System design (at least one question): high-level design from a one-line ambiguous prompt, splitting the system into roughly five to seven blocks with abstractions such as load balancers, app servers, NoSQL stores, message queues and rate limiters; low-level design of a data model, object-oriented design or API contract for one subsystem
- Coding: syntactically correct code with no pseudocode, judged on efficiency, reliability, robustness, portability, maintainability and readability; interviewers check bug-finding, alternative approaches, edge cases, self-testing and idiomatic language use
- Same three coding competencies and Leadership Principles behavioral format (with STAR) as the SDE II page
- Role expectations stated: technical leadership on the team, a system-wide architectural view, and code that is secure, maintainable, scalable and extensible
Outside or AI tools, according to this source: Does not address AI tools. It expects syntactically correct code without pseudocode and suggests practicing in Livecode. Follow the instructions in your own assessment invitation.
- Undated page.
- Its phone-screen system design note reuses the online-assessment wording (rating actions in fictional scenarios, no whiteboarding), which does not obviously fit a live screen with a senior leader; confirm the screen format with your recruiter.
- Expectations are calibrated for senior candidates and should not be applied to SDE II or new-graduate loops.
Open source(opens in a new tab)Link responded, 5 Oct 2026
Software development interview topics
Official
Amazon (amazon.jobs). Undated page; read 2026-10-05. Read in full for this page.
Scope: Software development engineer candidates generally; the page tells candidates to ask their recruiting contact which subjects apply
Documented by this source
- An online assessment with a coding test is described as an important part of SDE hiring, with a sample coding challenge linked
- Most technical interviews involve coding and system design whiteboarding exercises; candidates should confirm likely subjects with their recruiting contact
- Programming language: no specific language required, but know a prominent one well, including memory management and common collections and libraries
- Data structures (inner workings, runtimes, memory use) and common algorithms (traversals, divide and conquer, BFS versus DFS) with their trade-offs; not rote memorization
- Coding: syntactically correct code without pseudocode, practiced outside an IDE; evaluation centers on scalable, robust, well-tested code with edge cases and input validation
- Object-oriented design: working knowledge of common design patterns and the ability to defend design choices
- Databases: broad database concepts and the trade-offs between relational and non-relational stores
- Distributed computing: service-oriented architecture, map-reduce, distributed caching and load balancing
- Operating systems (memory management, processes, threads, synchronization, paging, multithreading) and internet fundamentals (DNS, TCP/IP, sockets, how browsers work)
- General ML and AI: formulating a problem as an ML problem, train/test protocols, error analysis and statistical significance
Outside or AI tools, according to this source: Does not address AI tools. It recommends practicing coding outside an integrated development environment. Follow the instructions in your own assessment invitation.
- A broad topic list: it does not say which topics apply to which role, level or interview, and says interviewers do not test memorized details.
- Undated; the URL is the en-gb version of the page.
Open source(opens in a new tab)Link responded, 5 Oct 2026
Online Assessment Prep: Software Development Engineer II
Official
Amazon (amazon.jobs). Undated page; read 2026-10-05. Read in full for this page.
Scope: The SDE II online assessment, which the page says every SDE II candidate must complete
Documented by this source
- Three required sections plus an optional survey: a timed 90-minute coding challenge with two questions in HackerRank, an untimed system design work simulation (estimated 15 minutes) and untimed work style questions (estimated 10 minutes); reserving two hours is recommended
- The system design section asks you to rate the effectiveness of possible actions in workplace scenarios; it involves no whiteboarding or diagrams
- Work style section: multiple-choice questions about how you work, measured against the Leadership Principles; no study needed
- Seven days to complete after the link is sent; candidates hear within two days; those not advanced are encouraged to reapply after six months
- One online assessment applies across multiple SDE II positions, and a previous pass may let you skip it, which a recruiter confirms
- Coding topics: familiarity with a prominent language, data structures and algorithms, and logical, maintainable code; accepted languages are listed
Outside or AI tools, according to this source: Does not address AI tools; it describes the HackerRank environment, the 90-minute timer and the accepted languages. Follow the instructions in your own assessment invitation.
- Its section timings (untimed, about 15 and 10 minutes) differ from the SDE II prep page (20 and 8 minutes); follow the instructions in your assessment invitation.
- Covers SDE II only; the SDE III page describes a phone screen instead.
Open source(opens in a new tab)Link responded, 5 Oct 2026

Our preparation recommendation

This is our suggestion based on the role and the sources above. It is not a statement by Amazon.

Our recommendation, not Amazon guidance: give behavioral preparation real weight, since the pages say each interviewer typically asks two or three Leadership Principles questions. For coding, practice writing compiling, readable code with tests and complexity analysis, which the pages state as evaluation criteria. For design, SDE II candidates should practice service-level designs with scaling and failure handling; SDE III candidates should add the documented high-level-to-low-level design flow and senior-scope stories. Add OS, networking, database or ML topics from the general topics page when your role or recruiter points to them.

Behavioral stories and values-based questionsNot started
Each interviewer typically asks two or three Leadership Principles questions; build STAR stories with data and clear personal ownership.
Complexity analysisNot started
The pages say time and space complexity will be asked in almost every coding question.
Trees and binary search treesNot started
Trees are named among the core data structures, and several practice links on the prep pages are tree exercises.
Graph traversal: BFS, DFS and componentsNot started
The pages ask you to understand traversals and the trade-offs between BFS and DFS.
Correctness, invariants, edge cases and testingNot started
Well-tested code, edge cases and rejecting bad input are stated evaluation criteria.
Data modeling, ownership and dependency boundariesNot started
The logical-and-maintainable competency and SDE III low-level design ask for clear class structure, separation of concerns and data models.
System design methodNot started
Each loop includes at least one system design question; practice clarifying requirements and justifying trade-offs.
Partitioning, hot keys and cachingNot started
Caching, load balancing, sharding and non-relational stores are the scaling concepts the pages name.
Retries, deadlines, overload and graceful degradationNot started
The design tips ask you to address operations, bottlenecks, failure points and redundancy.
Senior scope, ownership and technical leadershipNot started
Mainly for SDE III, where the role is described as technical leadership with a system-wide architectural view.

Confirm with your recruiter

Which level the process is for (SDE II, SDE III or another), since the documented steps differ: an online assessment for SDE II and a 60-minute phone screen for SDE III.
The number, length and focus of loop interviews (the pages say four 55-minute interviews for SDE II and five for SDE III), and which of them cover system design.
Online assessment rules: section time limits, the 7-day window, the coding platform, and whether any outside resources are allowed (the pages read for this entry do not say).
Which programming language you will use and whether the live coding environment can run code.
Whether AI assistants or other tools are permitted at any stage; the pages read do not say, so follow your written assessment instructions and ask before using any tool.
Which Leadership Principles each interviewer will focus on, if the recruiter can share it.
Logistics: Zoom or Amazon Chime, Livecode for coding, the design whiteboard tool, possible shadow interviewers, and accommodations.
Whether role-specific topics from the general topics page (OS, networking, databases, ML) apply to your team.

Limitations of this page

Covers SDE II and SDE III software development roles; new-graduate, intern, applied scientist and specialized team processes are not described here.
All Amazon pages read are undated and differ slightly in online-assessment timings.
No Amazon statement on AI tool use was found on the pages read.