Amazon - interview guide

Amazon interview questions - a complete guide

The Amazon interview revolves around the Leadership Principles - every interviewer asks behavioural questions alongside coding. Here is the official format, the STAR method and the common questions.

Language:EnglishHinglish

About Amazon

Amazon is a global company in e-commerce, cloud (AWS) and many other products, with large engineering and operations centres in India. Every interview is built around Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles - behavioural questions alongside coding.

This guide covers 12 Amazon interview questions with answers - what each question checks and how to answer it - plus the Amazon interview process, round by round, a 7-day preparation plan for freshers, tips and the mistakes to avoid.

Amazon hiring process

  1. Step 1: Online assessment (SDE)

    According to Amazon's official SDE II prep page: 2 coding questions in 90 minutes, 20 minutes of system design scenarios, and an 8-minute Work Style Survey tied to the Leadership Principles.

  2. Step 2: Interview loop

    Four interviews for SDE II, 55 minutes each. The number varies by role. Each interviewer usually asks 2-3 behavioural questions too.

  3. Coding

    You must write syntactically correct code - not pseudocode. Edge cases and invalid input matter.

  4. Leadership Principles

    Amazon has 16 Leadership Principles - such as Customer Obsession, Ownership, Dive Deep, Bias for Action and Deliver Results. Behavioural questions are based on them, and Amazon doesn't ask brain teasers.

The online assessment, loop and coding rules are from Amazon's official SDE II interview prep page; the Leadership Principles are from Amazon's official page. Other roles can differ - see your role's prep page on amazon.jobs.

Sources (checked 15 October 2026): Amazon SDE II Interview Prep (amazon.jobs), Amazon Leadership Principles (amazon.jobs). Hiring processes change - read the official notice before you apply.

Amazon interview questions and answers

Leadership Principles (behavioural)

Use the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result - and give numbers wherever you can. Amazon is a data-driven company.

  1. 1.Customer Obsession: tell me about a time you went the extra mile for a customer.

    What they're checking
    Whether you start your work from the customer's need.
    How to answer
    Who the customer was (a user, a client or a team inside), the problem, what you did differently, and the result - with a number.
    Example answer
    “Users of our app were confused after paying. I read the support tickets, added a confirmation screen, and tickets of that kind fell by about 40%.”

  2. 2.Ownership: tell me about work that wasn't your responsibility but you did anyway.

    What they're checking
    Whether you say 'not my job' or treat the problem as yours.
    How to answer
    Say the problem belonged to someone else, why you took it on, what you did, and what you fixed for the long term.

  3. 3.Dive Deep: how did you find the real cause of a problem from data?

    What they're checking
    The habit of going into details.
    How to answer
    What the symptom was, which data you looked at, what you found that wasn't visible on the surface, and what the fix was.

  4. 4.Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit: when did you disagree with a senior?

    What they're checking
    Whether you can make your case respectfully - and give full support once a decision is made.
    How to answer
    Show that you made your case with data, listened and understood, and worked fully on the final decision.

  5. 5.Bias for Action: when did you have to decide with incomplete information?

    What they're checking
    Speed and calculated risk.
    How to answer
    What you knew and didn't, how you reduced the risk (such as choosing a reversible decision), and the outcome.

  6. 6.Tell me about a failure.

    What they're checking
    Honesty and the habit of learning.
    How to answer
    Pick a real failure. Spend most of the time on what you learned and what you did differently next time.

  7. 7.Deliver Results: how did you finish work on a tight deadline?

    What they're checking
    Setting priorities and delivering.
    How to answer
    What was essential and what you dropped, how you kept the team updated, and when and how the result was delivered.

Coding and system design

  1. 8.Two Sum: find two numbers in an array that add up to a target.

    What they're checking
    Whether you can think beyond brute force.
    How to answer
    A hash map: for each number, check whether (target - number) has been seen. O(n). Mention edge cases (duplicates, no answer).

  2. 9.Count the islands in a grid.

    What they're checking
    Graph traversal (BFS/DFS).
    How to answer
    From each unvisited land cell, run DFS/BFS to mark the whole island visited; the number of times you start is the number of islands.

  3. 10.Find the top K frequent elements.

    What they're checking
    Combining a heap and a hash map.
    How to answer
    Count frequencies with a hash map, then keep a min-heap of size K. O(n log k). You can mention bucket sort too.

  4. 11.Design an LRU cache.

    What they're checking
    Combining data structures into a design.
    How to answer
    Hash map (O(1) lookup) + doubly linked list (recency order). Move an item to the front when used; when full, remove from the back.

  5. 12.Design a URL shortener (system design).

    What they're checking
    Practical system design - scale and reliability.
    How to answer
    First ask about requirements and scale. Then ID generation, a key-value store, a cache for popular links, and the redirect. Ask questions about your design and explain the trade-offs.

7-day preparation plan for the Amazon interview

  1. Day 1: Read every Leadership Principle and write 8-10 STAR stories.
  2. Day 2: Arrays, hashing and two pointers.
  3. Day 3: Trees and graphs (BFS/DFS).
  4. Day 4: Heaps and design (LRU cache).
  5. Day 5: System design basics - one system end to end.
  6. Day 6: Add numbers to your stories and practise them out loud.
  7. Day 7: A mock loop - 2 coding + 2 behavioural.

Preparation tips

  • Prepare at least one STAR story for each Leadership Principle - some stories fit several principles.
  • Put numbers in your stories: time saved, users reached, improvement made.
  • In coding, state the approach first, then write the code, then test it with an example.
  • Ask questions in system design - according to Amazon's official page, this is expected.

Mistakes to avoid

  • Taking behavioural questions lightly - every interviewer asks them.
  • Saying 'we' in stories - Amazon wants to hear what you did.
  • Writing pseudocode - Amazon expects code with correct syntax.
  • Stories without numbers and results.

Frequently asked questions

How many rounds are there in the Amazon interview?

According to Amazon's official SDE II prep page, four 55-minute interviews follow the online assessment. The number can differ for other roles.

What are Amazon's Leadership Principles?

Amazon's 16 principles, such as Customer Obsession, Ownership, Dive Deep and Deliver Results. Behavioural questions are based on them.

Can the Amazon interview be in Hindi?

The interview is usually in English. Practise telling your stories in English - thinking in Hinglish and speaking in English is perfectly fine.

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