Amazon | SDE 2 | Sept 2026 | Rejected
- Experience
- 8 years
- Posted
- 16 Oct 2026
Summary
I went through Amazon's SDE 2 interview process in September 2026, completed multiple DSA, system design and leadership principle rounds, but was ultimately rejected after the Bar Raiser round.
How it went
Company: Amazon Role: SDE 2
Current Org: Startup College: Tier-1 YOE: 8+ Current Comp: ~65L (Cash component) + ESOPs
Note: A friend referred me for an SDE 2 position. I was skeptical about interviewing for SDE 2 with 8+ years of experience, but gave it anyway for the interview experience.
Online Assessment (OA)
- DSA Question: Graph problem requiring DFS + binary search on the answer space.
- AI Coding Round: Fix some issues in a codebase for an IMDb-like site.
- Amazon Work Style Survey.
Screening Round
- Leadership Principles (LP) questions.
- DSA Question 1: Top K frequent elements in an array. I proposed a min-heap approach, but the interviewer specifically wanted in-place bottom-up heapify.
- DSA Question 2: Find a substring in another string, but matching word-by-word. Solved it using a hash map after a few hints from the interviewer.
- Note: Was not sure if I'd make it past this round, but received an invite for the online loop after 3-4 days.
Loop - Round 1 (DSA)
- LP questions focused on my most important project.
- DSA Question: LFU Cache. I was not able to achieve the optimal O(1) time complexity for all operations.
Loop - Round 2 (LLD)
- Design a delivery slot booking system for Amazon Fresh.
Loop - Round 3 (Hiring Manager)
- LP questions: Biggest failure/mistake, conflict with PM/team.
- System Design: Design CoWIN (vaccine appointment booking platform).
- Observation: Felt the manager already knew Round 1 didn't go well; he didn't seem very engaged during the interview.
Loop - Round 4 (Bar Raiser) Initially scheduled alongside the loop, but got postponed by two weeks.
- LP questions: Something you did outside of work, conflict with PM.
- DSA Question 1: Variation of Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) in an N-ary tree.
- DSA Question 2: Shortest cost path in a weighted graph.
Verdict: Rejected. Received the rejection email two days after the Bar Raiser round.
Questions asked (7)
- 01
Top K Frequent Elements
Data Structures & Algorithms
Find the top K frequent elements in an array. The interviewer wanted an in-place bottom-up heapify solution rather than using a min-heap.
- 02
Word-by-Word Substring Match
Data Structures & Algorithms
Given a string, find a substring in another string, matching word-by-word. I solved it using a hash map after a few hints from the interviewer.
- 03
LFU Cache
Data Structures & Algorithms
Implement an LFU (Least Frequently Used) cache. I was not able to achieve O(1) time complexity for all operations.
- 04
Variation of LCA in N-ary Tree
Data Structures & Algorithms
Find the lowest common ancestor in an N-ary tree (a variation of the standard LCA problem).
- 05
Shortest Cost Path in Weighted Graph
Data Structures & Algorithms
Compute the shortest cost path in a weighted graph.
- 06
Delivery Slot Booking System (Amazon Fresh)
System Design
Design a delivery slot booking system for Amazon Fresh, covering requirements such as slot allocation, user preferences, and scalability.
- 07
CoWIN Vaccine Appointment Booking Platform
System Design
Design the CoWIN platform for vaccine appointment booking, including handling high traffic, user authentication, appointment scheduling, and notifications.