Amazon SDE2 Interview Experience | Virtual Onsite | Mar 2025 | Seattle

Hi Folks,

I want to share my recent interview experience with Amazon, which will help you prepare better.

I interviewed for the Amazon Software Development Engineer 2 position, the process took around 1.5 months.

First (Online Assessment):

I cleared the online assessment. I will not talk much about this as I will talk more about Interviews. It went really well. I was able to code both the solutions, and the system design simulation round also went well, so I was directly invited to the Virtual Onsite.

PS: If the assessment doesn't go very well, then you have to go through a screening round, lucky for me, I bypassed that round

Virtual Onsite:

You should know, that in every round there will be 2 behavioral questions asked. With follow-ups, so you need to prepare your answers in advance and according to Amazon 16 leadership principles. My recruiter said only 8 would be asked so I prepared according to those, Those were:

Customer Obsession, Ownership, Deliver Results, Dive Deep, Invent & Simplify, Learn and be curious, Earn Trust, Have Backbone.

This was my case, but you should prepare for all until the recruiter explicitly mentions it in the prep call.

Now coming to the interview, It consisted of 4 different rounds:

1) Data Structure & Algorithm

This round was taken by a Senior SDE, calm interviewer. Pretty standard behavioral questions - like tell me about a time you took ownership, and some follow-ups, and one where I disagreed with what the team was saying and how I convinced them to do what I was suggesting, there were a lot of followups on this. It went on for 35 min.

Remaining time: Coding

It was a tricky question and could be optimally solved using Trie, it took me time to explain and then I was able to complete the code at the last minute, The interviewer wanted to ask for some followups but there was no time remaining.

According to me the round went well. I would say Hire

2) Low level design

This was taken by an SDE2. He asked simple behavioral questions - based on Dive Deep, and Invent and Simplify. Very easy if you have your stories prepared well.

LLD question: Due to NDA, I can't share the question, but it was pretty starightforward String based problem, and just I need to take care of the field It could be anything Int, or String (consider a postal code), and needs to write a maintainable code, that is extensible, did well on the first go. Lots of follow-ups on how can i change the design, what if it's empty, what if it has a variable length kind of, I was able to answer some, and some may or may not be correct, Not sure tbh!

I feel this round went well, I would say Hire

3) Problem Solving | Bar Raiser round

The guy was an SDM, he was very strict, but a good listener. He started his behavior with one question, and he kept getting into the details of it and criticizing what I was answering, I was telling him multiple things, and he was not clear, but he was asking different things so he talked about different scenarios and trying to relate it, but he was not looking convinced plus he was saying, I didn't get it, speak slow, sometimes he was like you don't know what you did kind of things and was not happy at all. But ideally, I was able to answer what he was asking but I believe he wanted me to pressurize. This went on for 42 min. Then only 18 min left

Coding: He gave me an easy coding problem, I need to use a regex to solve that, typically there were prices given and I needed to apply a discount on that, but it was an alphanumeric string, like a product with price and I need to apply the discount and return it, so was easy, he asked me to dry run my code, but still not looking happy he said, I don't know how will it work for all scenario, trust me it was a good solution, later after my interview I checked.

This round didn't go well, and my hopes were crushed, as he was the bar raiser, but I didn't have much time, as in the next 5 min I had my last round.

I would say for this round - No Hire

4) System Design | Hiring Manager

The HM was really good, calm, and soft-spoken. He started with behavior, like telling me about a time I disagreed with my manager, what did I, how I convinced the manager, what if he was right, and lots of followups, and he asked the same for peers, the discussion went good and he seemed happy, it went for 35 minutes.

System Design: It was regarding a scheduling service, he told me can go as I liked, so I followed a structured approach, getting functional and nonfunctional requirements, then doing Back of the Envelope calculation (Recommended if you have time), then did API design, listed few basic APIs where he asked ques, then moved to diagram where firstly I designed for basic flow and fewer users, and then I planned to scale up design and getting in detail with each component, but he interrupted and asked questions on few components, due to which I was not able to complete detailed design however the basic design was also good, and he asked about database decisions, CAP theorem, what type of cache, etc, overall the round went really went and he was also satisfied. The discussion stretched by 10 minutes.

I would say this round was the best of all. Strong Hire I believe

Decision

After 5 days, a recruiter called and said, its an unfortunate no, and they could not share feedback according to their policies, but it was close. I believe the 3rd round that was the Bar raiser round made this difference. It was all fate, but there are a few points where I lacked:

• I spent too much time on LPs giving big answers and that costed me time for technicals, so please try to finish it ASAP in under 20-25 min, that will save you a lot of time.

• Also, the impact an SDE2 needs in their work (through answers in behavioral portion), for me it was not that much and another reason why I might be rejected.

Now again back to square 1, job hunt, preparing, grinding, and hoping an opportunity knocks on the door.

However my recruiter said, I could apply for SDE1, but I tried but my profile never got picked for SDE1 (I have 4 YOE). I would really appreciate it if someone could help and let me know what to do so that my profile gets picked up. I wanted to join Amazon!

But for interview related things, Please let me know if you have questions! Happy to answer