Senior Engineer’s Guide to Amazon Interviews + Questions
A Senior Engineer’s Guide to Amazon's Interview Process and Questions
The Amazon Hiring Process and Common Questions
~20 minute read
Table of Contents
Part 1: Differences between the FAANGs
- The Chaos Score
- How we calculated the Chaos Score for each company
- Deep dive into the FAANG Chaos Scores
- Which FAANGs let you interview with different teams simultaneously?
Part 2: A guide to each FAANG company’s interview process
Amazon interview stages (quick outline)
- Resume screen
- Recruiter call or online assessment
- Technical phone screen (if you didn’t do the online assessment)
- Onsite / virtual loop
- Offer & negotiation
Amazon’s process is not centralized, and you can interview with multiple teams concurrently. To up your odds, interview with as many teams as you have the appetite for.
Amazon really loves their Leadership Principles (LPs). Amazon interviewers may sandwich LP questions anywhere and everywhere throughout your interview rounds.
Finally, Amazon has one of the more-structured interviewing cultures. They’re the only FAANG where interviewers exist in a formal hierarchy.
In this guide, we’ve compiled a comprehensive Amazon job interview prep guide based on in-depth discussions with Amazon interviewers and interviewees. Our guide includes detailed walkthroughs of the interview process, common questions and solutions, interview tips, video replays of mock Amazon interviews, and more.
An overview of Amazon's interview process and questions
Amazon’s interview process consists of the following steps:
- Recruiter call OR online assessment
- Technical phone screen (if you didn’t do the online assessment)
- Onsite
Step 1: Online assessment or recruiter call
Whether you start with an online assessment or an Amazon recruiter call depends on a few factors:
- Are you a mid-to-senior engineer?
- Have you previously interviewed at Amazon?
- Have you previously worked at a FAANG?
If you do the online assessment, it’s a timed, asynchronous test conducted via HackerRank. These are usually data structures and algorithm problems of easy to medium-level difficulty.
Step 2: Technical phone screen
Amazon’s technical phone interview is a coding interview focusing exclusively on data structures and algorithms. Amazon uses an internal tool called Livecode for the interview.
Step 3: Onsite interviews
The typical Amazon onsite for technical roles consists of:
- One behavioral round
- Three coding rounds
- One system design round
- One hiring manager round
A special type of interviewer included in onsite loops is the Bar Raiser, who ensures hiring decisions are not influenced solely by the candidate's immediate team.
AI usage in Amazon interviews
AI usage in Amazon interviews is strictly prohibited.
The three types of Amazon interview
- Coding interview: You will have to do coding interviews during the phone screen and onsite, focusing on medium-difficulty LeetCode-style questions.
- Behavioral interview: One of the most important interviews that could lead to an offer based on your fit with the company.
- System design interview: Expect practical system design questions relevant to the team you’re interviewing with.
How Amazon makes hiring decisions
Amazon operates a structured decision-making process relying heavily on live discussions to make decisions. The two most important interviewers at the onsite are the Bar Raiser and the hiring manager.
Resources to prepare yourself for an Amazon coding interview
Common Amazon interview questions and solutions
- Three Sum: Given an array of integers, return an array of triplets that sum to zero.
- Count Complete Tree Nodes: Return the number of nodes in a complete binary tree.
- Top K Frequent Elements: Given an array of integers, return the k most frequent elements.
Other Amazon interview preparation resources
Behavioral
System design
Amazon interview process FAQ
- How long does the Amazon hiring process take? Typically 4–8 weeks.
- Do I have to take the online assessment (OA)? Not always, some senior candidates may skip it.
- How many interviews are in the loop? Usually 4–6 interviews covering all key aspects.
- Can Leadership Principle questions appear in technical rounds? Yes.