Amazon SDE-1 Interview Experience
Summary
I completed the Amazon SDE-1 interview process in April 2026, which included an online assessment, multiple onsite rounds covering DSA, system design, and behavioral questions.
Full Experience
Amazon SDE Interview Experience (April 2026)
Online Assessment (OA)
- Coding: 2 Medium–Hard DSA questions
Round 1: DSA (Onsite) – 6th April 2026 (1 hour)
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Search in a Sorted and Rotated Array https://leetcode.com/problems/search-in-rotated-sorted-array/
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Variation of Kadane’s Algorithm
- Given a circular (rotated) array, find the maximum subarray sum.
Round 2: DSA + Project Discussion (Onsite) – 6th April 2026 (1 hour)
- First 10 minutes: Discussion about my work experience.
DSA Questions:
-
Given an array and an integer
k, find the maximum subarray sum from indexitojsuch that:|a[i] - a[j]| = k -
Number of Islands https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-islands/
- Behavioral: 5 questions based on Amazon Leadership Principles.
Round 3: Hiring Manager (Gen-AI Focus) – Onsite – 6th April 2026 (1 hour)
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First 15 minutes: Discussion on:
- Usage of Generative AI tools
- Experience working with AI tools
- How do I verify the correctness of code generated by Gen-AI
DSA Question:
- Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree https://leetcode.com/problems/lowest-common-ancestor-of-a-binary-tree/
System Design:
- Design a system to schedule processes.
Round 4: Bar Raiser (Leadership Principles Focus) – Virtual – 14th April 2026 (1 hour)
- This round focused entirely on Leadership Principles (no technical questions).
Behavioral Questions:
- A situation where I had to deep dive into a problem (with follow-up questions)
- A situation where I had to convince someone of my approach
- Two additional Leadership Principles-based questions
Overall Experience
The interview process was well-structured and covered:
- Strong DSA fundamentals
- Problem-solving ability
- System design basics
- Real-world project discussion
- Leadership Principles and behavioral skills
- Awareness and practical usage of Generative AI
Interview Questions (6)
Search in Rotated Sorted Array
Find the index of a target value in a sorted array that has been rotated at an unknown pivot. Return -1 if the target is not found.
Maximum Subarray Sum in Circular Array (Kadane Variant)
Given a circular (rotated) array, find the maximum subarray sum.
Maximum Subarray Sum with Absolute Difference Constraint
Given an array and an integer k, find the maximum subarray sum from index i to j such that |a[i] - a[j]| = k.
Number of Islands
Given a 2D grid of '1's (land) and '0's (water), count the number of distinct islands. An island is formed by connecting adjacent lands horizontally or vertically.
Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree
Given a binary tree, find the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of two given nodes in the tree.
Process Scheduling System Design
Design a system to schedule processes, handling aspects such as queue management, priority handling, and scalability.