Amazon Interview Questions 2026: Online Assessment, Coding and Leadership Principles (With Answers)

Amazon interviews have two halves, and most people prepare for only one. The first half is coding (data structures and algorithms). The second half is Leadership Principles, which are behavioural questions asked in every single round. Strong coders get rejected all the time because their stories are weak.

This guide covers the Amazon SDE hiring process in India and 30 commonly asked Amazon interview questions: coding, Leadership Principles and CS basics.

Amazon hiring process at a glance (SDE)

1. Apply through amazon.jobs, campus hiring, or a referral.
2. Online assessment (OA): usually 2 coding problems, plus a work-style survey and sometimes a work simulation.
3. Interview loop: usually 3–4 rounds of about 60 minutes each. Each round mixes coding with 1–2 Leadership Principle questions.
4. Bar Raiser: one interviewer from outside the team whose job is to keep the hiring bar high. They can veto the hire.
5. Debrief and offer: all interviewers meet and decide together.

For SDE-2 and above, expect at least one system design round as well.

What about salary?

Amazon pays a base salary plus a joining bonus and restricted stock (RSUs) that vest over four years. Total pay depends heavily on level (SDE-1, SDE-2, SDE-3) and location. Check recent offers on salary-sharing sites before you negotiate, and look at the full 4-year package, not just year one.

Amazon online assessment

• Coding: 2 problems, usually medium difficulty. Arrays, strings, hashing, graphs and greedy are common.
• Work style survey: statements you agree or disagree with. Answer honestly, but keep the Leadership Principles in mind. Amazon values ownership and customer focus.
• Work simulation: realistic workplace scenarios where you pick the best response.

Amazon coding interview questions

These are commonly reported in Amazon loops. Practise explaining your approach, its time complexity, and edge cases out loud.

1. Two Sum: find two numbers in an array that add up to a target.
   Use a hash map of value to index. O(n).
2. Number of islands: count connected groups of 1s in a grid.
   Run a DFS or BFS from each unvisited land cell. O(rows × cols).
3. LRU cache: design a cache that evicts the least recently used item.
   Use a hash map plus a doubly linked list for O(1) get and put.
4. Merge k sorted lists.
   Use a min-heap of size k. O(n log k).
5. Top K frequent elements.
   Count with a hash map, then use a heap or bucket sort.
6. Longest substring without repeating characters.
   Sliding window with a set or a last-seen index map. O(n).
7. Rotting oranges: find the minutes until all oranges rot.
   Multi-source BFS from all rotten oranges at once.
8. Lowest common ancestor in a binary tree.
   Recursive DFS: if both sides return a node, the current node is the LCA.
9. Word ladder: the shortest transformation from one word to another.
   BFS over words, changing one letter at a time.
10. Trapping rain water.
    Two pointers that track the left max and right max. O(n) time, O(1) space.
11. Course schedule: can all courses be finished given prerequisites?
    Detect a cycle with topological sort (Kahn's algorithm).
12. Find the median of a data stream.
    Two heaps: a max-heap for the lower half and a min-heap for the upper half.

Amazon Leadership Principle questions

Amazon has 16 Leadership Principles. Prepare 6–8 strong stories using the STAR method (situation, task, action, result) and reuse them across principles. Use "I", not "we", and include numbers in your results.

1. Customer Obsession: Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a customer or user.
2. Ownership: Tell me about a time you took on something outside your job description.
3. Dive Deep: Tell me about a time you used data to find the root cause of a problem.
4. Bias for Action: Tell me about a time you made a decision without all the information.
5. Deliver Results: Tell me about a time you delivered under a tight deadline.
6. Disagree and Commit: Tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager or team.
7. Earn Trust: Tell me about a time you made a mistake. How did you handle it?
8. Invent and Simplify: Tell me about a time you found a simpler way to do something.
9. Learn and Be Curious: Tell me about something you learned recently on your own.
10. Insist on the Highest Standards: Tell me about a time you refused to compromise on quality.

Tip: Interviewers dig in with follow-ups like "What exactly did you do?" and "What would you do differently?". Vague stories fall apart. Specific ones hold up.

Amazon CS fundamentals questions

1. What is the difference between a process and a thread?
   A process has its own memory space. Threads share their process's memory.
2. How does a hash map handle collisions?
   With chaining (a list at each bucket) or open addressing (probing for the next free slot).
3. What happens when you type a URL in the browser?
   DNS lookup, TCP/TLS handshake, HTTP request, server response, then the browser renders the page.
4. SDE-2: how would you design a URL shortener?
   Cover the API, ID generation (base62), the database choice, caching popular links, and scaling reads.

Amazon behavioural basics

1. Why Amazon?
   Tie your answer to a specific product or principle you care about, not just the brand.
2. Tell me about your most challenging project.
   Focus on the hardest decision you made and its measurable result.
3. Where do you want to grow in the next few years?
   Connect your goal to the team or role you are interviewing for.
4. Do you have any questions for us?
   Always ask one real question about the team's work or challenges.

How to prepare for Amazon in 4 weeks

• Week 1: Arrays, strings, hashing, two pointers and sliding window.
• Week 2: Trees, graphs (BFS/DFS), heaps and topological sort.
• Week 3: Dynamic programming basics and mock interviews. Write 6–8 STAR stories.
• Week 4: Timed mocks with LP questions mixed in. SDE-2: two system design mocks. Our software engineering interview questions guide helps with the basics.

Want a shortcut? Get a referral

A referral from an Amazon employee is one of the best ways to get past resume screening. See our guide on how to get a job referral at Amazon India.

Frequently asked questions

How many rounds are there in the Amazon interview?
Usually an online assessment plus 3–4 interview rounds, including a Bar Raiser.

Are Leadership Principles really that important?
Yes. They are asked in every round and can decide the outcome even when your coding is strong.

Is Amazon's coding round hard?
Mostly medium-level problems. Clear communication and clean code matter as much as the right answer.

Preparing for other companies too?
See our Google interview questions guide.

Find jobs at Amazon and similar companies

Browse open roles on Weekday: verified companies, active hiring teams, and filters for experience, location and salary.