Got the offerSDE-2 (Level 5) at Amazon
- Difficulty
- Process took
- 3-4 Weeks
- Rounds
- 5
- Format
- Remote
- Applied via
- Referral
How it went
- Expect every round to include Leadership Principle questions, treat them with equal importance as coding.
- For LLD/HLD, think from a real product perspective: How would this scale? What would break? What trade-offs are you accepting?
What they would tell you
- Expect every round to include Leadership Principle questions, treat them with equal importance as coding.
- For LLD/HLD, think from a real product perspective: How would this scale? What would break? What trade-offs are you accepting?
How to prepare
- Focus on patterns: sliding window, heap, trees, graphs, and DP
- Amazon takes this Leadership Principles very seriously. I prepared 4 real-life scenarios for each LP
- Answered in STAR format: Situation, Task, Action, Result, learn more about STAR format- Amazon STAR Guide
Round by round
- 1
Online Assessment60 min
The assessment had two parts: 2 Coding Questions Behavioral Questions One was hard and the other was medium. One of them was quite similar to Task Scheduler, and the other was based on Dynamic Programming, though I don’t fully remember the exact problem.
- 2
DSA60 min
I was given an N-ary tree and asked to return all nodes at a given level. The twist was that nodes could be added or removed dynamically, and I had to find a way to return the count of nodes at a given level in O(1) time.
- 3
Low-Level Design60 min
I was asked to design Stack Overflow, focusing on key entities, their relationships, and the main APIs. I created UML diagrams to represent the structure and defined REST APIs for interacting with different services. We also discussed relevant design patterns and best practices throughout the session. Leadership Principles Discussed:
- Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
- Insist on Highest Standards
- 4
High-Level Design (HLD)60 min
I was asked to design an online coding platform similar to LeetCode. I walked through the architecture of core modules like User Management, Code Execution, Test Engine, and the Leaderboard. We also had detailed discussions around monolith vs microservices, scalability, high availability, security, and storage choices. Leadership Principles Discussed:
- How I take ownership of design decisions
- How I build trust through clarity and depth of thought
- 5
Bar Raiser Round60 min
The first 30 minutes focused on a deep dive into Leadership Principles and my past projects. There was a strong emphasis on how I approach challenges and decision-making, especially around customer impact. The last 30 minutes were spent on a coding problem based on Trapping Rain Water.
What came up
A candidate-reported account, lightly edited. Interview processes change by team and date.