Amazon Software Engineer Interview Guide: Everything You Need to Know (2025)

Amazon hires 30,000+ tech employees per year—more than any other FAANG company. With 2,500+ open SDE positions right now, your chances of landing an offer are higher at Amazon than Google or Meta.

But don't be fooled: Amazon's Bar Raiser interview is notoriously brutal, and the company's "Day 1" culture isn't for everyone.

This guide covers everything you need to know to maximize your chances.

Why Amazon? The Good, Bad, and Ugly

The Good ✅

Hiring volume: 10x more openings than Netflix, 3x more than Google
Career velocity: Promote faster than other FAANGs (1-2 years L4→L5)
Ownership: Real autonomy over systems (not just cog in machine)
Compensation: Competitive (but back-loaded stock vesting)

The Bad ⚠️

Work-life balance: Expect 50-60 hour weeks (varies by team)
PIP culture: Bottom 5-10% performers exit annually
Oncall hell: Some teams have brutal 24/7 oncall rotations
Office mandates: Return-to-office (RTO) 3-5 days/week enforced

The Ugly 💀

Stock vesting: 5-15-40-40 (most stock in years 3-4, then cliff)
Burnout: High attrition rate (~25% leave within 2 years)
Politics: Compete with peers for promotion slots

Verdict: Great for early career (L4-L5) to build skills fast. Not ideal for senior engineers seeking WLB.

Current openings: Browse 2,500+ Amazon SDE jobs →

Amazon Interview Process (2025)

Step 1: Resume Screen

Amazon's ATS is less strict than Google's, but you still need:

Relevant tech stack (Java, Python, C++, AWS)
Quantifiable achievements
Leadership examples (Amazon obsesses over this)

Pro tip: Tailor your resume to Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles (LPs). Use LP keywords.

Step 2: Online Assessment (OA)

2-hour HackerRank test with:

2 LeetCode problems (Easy-Medium difficulty)
7 behavioral questions (work style, scenarios)
Debugging challenge (find bugs in broken code)

Pass rate: ~40% (easier than Google phone screen)

Prep: Practice on LeetCode (Amazon-tagged), focus on arrays, strings, trees.

Step 3: Phone Screen

45-minute technical interview:

1 LeetCode Medium problem
10 minutes of behavioral questions (LP-focused)

Common questions:

"Tell me about a time you failed" (Learn and Be Curious)
"How do you handle tight deadlines?" (Deliver Results)

Step 4: Onsite (The Loop)

5-6 back-to-back 1-hour interviews:

Interview Breakdown:

Coding x2: Two LeetCode Medium/Hard problems
System Design: Design scalable service (e.g., Amazon Prime Video)
Behavioral x2-3: Deep-dive into Leadership Principles
Bar Raiser: Hardest interview—coding + behavioral (this person can veto your hire)

Bar Raiser Details:

External interviewer (not from your target team)
Holds highest standards
Can reject you even if 4 other interviewers say "hire"
Pass rate: ~60% (hardest FAANG gatekeeper)

Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles (LPs)

Amazon doesn't hire for "culture fit"—they hire for LP alignment. Every behavioral question maps to one or more LPs.

The Big 4 (Most Asked):

Customer Obsession: "Start with customer and work backwards"
- Example question: "Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a customer"
Ownership: "Leaders act on behalf of the entire company, not just their team"
- Example: "Describe a project where you took initiative without being asked"
Bias for Action: "Speed matters in business. Many decisions are reversible"
- Example: "Tell me about a time you made a decision with incomplete information"
Deliver Results: "Leaders focus on key inputs and deliver with the right quality and in a timely fashion"
- Example: "How do you prioritize when everything is urgent?"

Other Key LPs:

Dive Deep: Leaders operate at all levels, no task is beneath them
Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit: Challenge decisions respectfully, then commit
Frugality: Accomplish more with less
Think Big: Create bold direction that inspires results

Pro tip: Prepare 10 STAR stories (Situation, Task, Action, Result) that map to different LPs. Reuse stories across questions.

Amazon Salaries: The Stock Vesting Trap

Level	Title	Base Salary	Total Comp (TC)	Stock Vesting
L4	SDE I	$110K - $130K	$160K - $220K	5-15-40-40
L5	SDE II	$130K - $160K	$220K - $350K	5-15-40-40
L6	SDE III (Senior)	$160K - $190K	$350K - $550K	5-15-40-40
L7	Principal SDE	$190K - $230K	$550K - $800K	Better vesting

The Catch: Amazon's stock vests 5% Year 1, 15% Year 2, 40% Year 3, 40% Year 4. To compensate, they give sign-on bonuses in Years 1-2.

Example (L5 offer):

Base: $150K
Year 1 Sign-on: $75K
Year 2 Sign-on: $55K
RSUs: $200K over 4 years (5-15-40-40)

Year 1 TC: $150K + $75K + $10K (5% of $200K) = $235K
Year 2 TC: $150K + $55K + $30K (15% of $200K) = $235K
Year 3 TC: $150K + $0 + $80K (40% of $200K) = $230K
Year 4 TC: $150K + $0 + $80K (40% of $200K) = $230K

After Year 4: Your TC drops by 35% unless you get a refresh (promotion or new grant). This is why Amazon has high attrition.

Best and Worst Teams at Amazon

Teams to Join ✅:

AWS (best WLB, cutting-edge tech, great pay)
Prime Video / Twitch (creative, fun projects)
Alexa AI (ML-heavy, research-oriented)
Devices (Kindle, Echo) (hardware + software)

Teams to Avoid ❌:

Fulfillment / Warehouse Tech (intense oncall, low morale)
Seller Services (legacy code, boring work)
Advertising (political, high stress)

Pro tip: During team matching, ask recruiters about:

Oncall rotation frequency
Average tenure of team members
Recent projects/launches

Amazon Coding Interview: What to Expect

Difficulty Level:

Easier than Google/Meta: More Mediums, fewer Hards
Harder than Microsoft: Expect 2 problems in 45 minutes

Most Common Topics:

Arrays & Strings (40%)
- Two Sum, Subarray Sum, String manipulation
Trees & Graphs (30%)
- BFS, DFS, Binary tree traversals
Dynamic Programming (15%)
- Knapsack, Longest Subsequence
Hash Maps & Heaps (10%)
- Top K elements, Frequency counting
Linked Lists (5%)
- Reversal, Cycle detection

Sample Questions (Amazon-tagged):

"Find the K Closest Points to Origin" (Medium)
"LRU Cache" (Medium)
"Number of Islands" (Medium)
"Merge K Sorted Lists" (Hard)

Preparation Plan:

Solve 75 Amazon-tagged LeetCode problems
Focus on clean, bug-free code (Amazon values this over optimal solutions)
Practice verbalizing your thought process

System Design at Amazon

Amazon's system design interviews focus on:

Scalability: How does it handle 100M users?
AWS Services: DynamoDB, S3, Lambda, SQS, etc.
Reliability: 99.99% uptime requirements
Cost optimization: Frugality LP in action

Common Prompts:

"Design Amazon's product recommendation engine"
"Design a distributed key-value store (like DynamoDB)"
"Design Amazon Prime Video streaming service"
"Design a URL shortener with analytics"

Key Concepts:

Load balancing (ELB, ALB)
Caching (ElastiCache, CloudFront CDN)
Databases (RDS vs DynamoDB trade-offs)
Messaging (SQS, SNS, Kinesis)
Monitoring (CloudWatch, X-Ray)

Pro tip: Mention AWS services naturally (but don't force it). Show you understand trade-offs.

How to Pass the Bar Raiser

The Bar Raiser interview is make-or-break. Here's how to ace it:

Step 1: Master LPs

Have 10+ STAR stories ready
Be specific (avoid generic answers)
Show both success AND failure stories (humility matters)

Step 2: Think Long-Term

Bar Raisers look for "raise the bar" candidates
Show examples of improving systems, mentoring, driving culture change

Step 3: Ask Smart Questions

At the end, ask about Amazon's tech stack, team dynamics, or LP in action
Shows genuine interest (Customer Obsession for your own career)

Step 4: Be Data-Driven

Use metrics in every story ("Reduced latency by 30%", "Saved $50K/year")
Amazon loves quantifiable impact

Amazon vs Other FAANG: Should You Join?

Amazon vs Google:

Hiring: 5x easier to get hired at Amazon
Compensation: Similar at L5+, but Google's vesting is better
WLB: Google wins (8/10 vs 6/10)
Learning: Google has better mentorship, Amazon has more ownership

Compare Google vs Amazon jobs side-by-side →

Amazon vs Meta:

Hiring: Amazon is easier (Meta is pickier post-layoffs)
Compensation: Meta pays 10-20% more
WLB: Meta wins (7/10 vs 6/10)
Stability: Amazon is more stable (Meta had 3 layoff rounds in 2023-2024)

View 500+ Meta jobs →

Amazon vs Startups:

Equity: Startups offer more upside (but risky)
Brand: Amazon credential lasts forever
Growth: Promote faster at startups (0-1 products)

6-Month Prep Plan for Amazon

Months 1-2: Coding

Solve 75 LeetCode problems (Amazon-tagged)
Focus on Mediums (Hards are rare at Amazon)
Practice on HackerRank (similar to OA format)

Months 3-4: Behavioral (LPs)

Write 10 STAR stories covering all 16 LPs
Practice with mock interviewers
Watch YouTube videos of Amazon LP interviews

Month 5: System Design

Read "Designing Data-Intensive Applications"
Learn AWS services (S3, EC2, Lambda, DynamoDB)
Practice 10 system design problems

Month 6: Mock Interviews + Apply

Do 5+ full mock loops (Pramp, Interviewing.io)
Get referrals (Blind, LinkedIn)
Apply to 10+ Amazon roles (diversify across AWS, Alexa, Prime)

Common Amazon Interview Mistakes

Not using STAR format: Amazon wants structure, not rambling
Being too humble: Show ownership and impact (brag a little)
Ignoring LPs: Every answer must tie back to LPs
Writing buggy code: Amazon values correctness over speed
Bad-mouthing past employers: Shows lack of professionalism (LP: Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit)

Is Amazon Worth It in 2025?

Join Amazon if:

You're early career (L4-L5) and want to learn fast
You thrive in high-pressure, fast-paced environments
You want a big-name brand on your resume
You're okay with 50-hour weeks for 2-3 years

Skip Amazon if:

You value work-life balance above all
You hate politics and PIP culture
You want fully remote work (RTO is enforced)
You're risk-averse (layoffs happened in 2023-2024)

Ready to Apply?

Next steps:

Browse 2,500+ Amazon SDE jobs on Leethub
Prepare 10 STAR stories for LPs
Grind 75 LeetCode problems
Get a referral (3x higher interview rate)

Also explore:

You got this! 💪

Last updated: January 2025
Data sources: Levels.fyi, Teamblind, Glassdoor, r/cscareerquestions