Amazon SDE 2 Interview Experience [Jan-Feb 2026] [Rejected]
Summary
I applied for an SDE 2 position at Amazon and went through multiple interview rounds including an Online Assessment, Low-Level Design, Data Structures & Algorithms, and High-Level Design. Despite some positive performances, I was ultimately rejected after the third round, with feedback indicating concerns in the LLD part and the importance of HLD.
Full Experience
I applied for SDE 2 position. A day after, I recieved the OA test link and a week later HR reached out to me for interview loops. HR mentioned that each round will be eliminatory
Round 0: OA
1. A question based on binary search and greedy. Not a standard leetcode question but it easy - medium complexity question
2. A question based on graphs
Round 1:
LLD
- Have backbone, disagree and commit.
When was the last time you disagreed to something with manager / techlead - How did you fix a recurring issue? How you made sure it never repeated.
- Quality of work vs deadline?
- LLD Question: Notification service (SMS + Email)
- ParcelDeliveryService will receive updates when a parcel goes out for deliver of customer
- We already have Email Service and SMSService which can send notification directly with a rate limit of 5000/min
- resend notifications if sending failed
- log of communications sent to the user.
A lot of follow up questions was asked after I explained my approach
I think this round was below average - average
HR Feedback: Few concerns on LLD part, LPs were fine
Round 2:
DSA
- Deliver results
- When was the time where you delivered a feature/ work in short amount of time
- had some follow up questions when I told about the customer purge feature
- learn and be curious.
- When was the time where you had pivot the feature direction after developing 75%
DSA Questions:
Jump game 1 (easily solved in 5 mins)
Jump game 2 (solved but struggled to explain)
Jump game 3 (Just told the bruteforce on how to solve)
I think this round was above average
HR Feedback: This went good, LPs were fine
HR suggestion: Come up with concrete examples for LPs and performing excellent in HLD is important as it’s eliminatory.
Round 3:
HLD
LPs: Earn trust and Ownership.
- When was the time you uncovered a problem in your team and how did you solve it?
- When was the time where a team mate bad performance effected yours?
Design Twitter and handle 600k reads per second and 6k writes per second and 300m DAU
I think this round was average - above average
HR didn't share any feedback
3 Days after round 3, I got a rejection mail.
Interview Questions (12)
Behavioral: Disagree and Commit
Tell me about a time when you disagreed with your manager or tech lead, and how you handled it.
Behavioral: Fixing Recurring Issues
Describe a situation where you identified and fixed a recurring issue. How did you ensure it wouldn't happen again?
Behavioral: Quality vs. Deadline
How do you balance quality of work with meeting deadlines?
Design Notification Service (SMS + Email)
Design a Notification Service that handles SMS and Email notifications. It should receive updates from a ParcelDeliveryService when a parcel goes out for delivery to a customer, utilize existing EmailService and SMSService which can send notifications directly with a rate limit of 5000/min, be able to resend notifications if sending failed, and log all communications sent to the user. A lot of follow-up questions were asked.
Behavioral: Delivering Results Quickly
Describe a time when you delivered a feature or completed work in a short amount of time. I had some follow-up questions when I discussed a customer purge feature.
Behavioral: Learning and Being Curious (Feature Pivot)
Tell me about a time when you had to pivot the direction of a feature after having developed 75% of it, demonstrating your ability to learn and be curious.
Jump Game I
Given an array of non-negative integers nums, you are initially positioned at the first index. Each element in the array represents your maximum jump length at that position. Determine if you can reach the last index.
Jump Game II
Given an array of non-negative integers nums, you are initially positioned at the first index. Each element in the array represents your maximum jump length at that position. Your goal is to reach the last index in the minimum number of jumps.
Jump Game III
Given an array of non-negative integers arr, you are initially positioned at start index. When you are at index i, you can jump to i + arr[i] or i - arr[i]. Return true if you can reach any index with value 0, otherwise return false. Notice that you can not jump outside of the array at any time.
Behavioral: Uncovering and Solving Team Problems
Tell me about a time when you uncovered a problem within your team and how you took ownership to solve it.
Behavioral: Dealing with Teammate Performance Impact
Describe a situation where a teammate's poor performance affected your work or team goals. How did you handle it?
Design Twitter (High Scale)
Design Twitter, focusing on handling high throughput: 600k reads per second, 6k writes per second, and 300 million daily active users (DAU).
Preparation Tips
Resourced used to prepare for interview:
- Top interview 150 leetcode questions
- HLD from https://www.hellointerview.com/
- LLD from Concept & Coding by Shrayansh youtube channel
Suggestions for those going to attend SDE 2 Interview loop:
- It is important to go in depth for HLD and LLD interviews
- Solve 2 DSA Questions in 45 mins, so practise DSA well
- LPs will be discussed for 15-30 mins in each interview. Make sure to have all of them prepared.
- Communicate your thoughts clearly.
I saw suggestions like this in some other discussions and subconsciously ignored... now it costed me a SDE 2 job at Amazon (60LPA+ lost :( )