Does Amazon SDE-1 have a system design round?

No, Amazon SDE-1 does not include a system design round. The focus is on DSA and coding.

Amazon

Q: How many rounds are there in Amazon SDE-1 interviews?

Amazon SDE-1 typically has 5 rounds. Amazon SDE-1 interviews are a dual filter: the DSA problems are medium-hard by FAANG standards, and the Leadership Principles behavioral questions carry equal weight. More candidates wash out on LP answers than on coding. Each on-site round opens with 2 LP questions (~15–20 min) before any code is written. Amazon revived Bar Raiser rounds for entry-level in 2024 — even new grads should expect one. Have at least 6 distinct STAR stories ready; interviewers share notes and will flag re-used examples.

Q: What topics are tested in Amazon SDE-1 interviews?

Amazon SDE-1 interviews test: Arrays, Intervals, Graphs, Greedy, LP: Customer Obsession, Trees, Serialization, BST.

E-commerce / Cloud · Seattle, WA

Amazon operates the world's largest marketplace and AWS, the dominant cloud platform powering 33% of the internet.

Related Companies

Rounds: 5 rounds
Focus: DSA + LP
System Design: No
Timeline: 2–3 weeks to offer

Role:

Rounds 1–2 are fully visible · Round 3+ unlocked with a free account

Online Assessment

Round 1 of 5OA

90 min

ArraysIntervalsGraphsGreedyLP: Customer Obsession

Two timed coding problems on HackerRank plus a Work Simulation (~50 min) and a Work Style Survey (15 min). The OA has three distinct sections and runs 2+ hours total. The coding section is auto-scored but also reviewed by an Amazon engineer — passing all test cases helps, but it does not automatically advance you. The Work Simulation drops you into a simulated Amazon workday: inbox messages, chat threads, a ticket queue. You pick responses to situations like an ambiguous customer complaint or a deadline that can't be met as scoped. It's assessing LP alignment, not typing speed.

Medium

What to expect

Coding Problem 1 (Medium): e.g., 'Given a list of warehouse delivery routes, find the minimum number of vans needed so no two routes overlap' — classic interval scheduling / meeting rooms
Coding Problem 2 (Medium-Hard): e.g., 'Find the minimum number of swaps to sort a circular array of package IDs' — cyclic decomposition or graph traversal
Work Simulation: you receive a backlog of emails and a dashboard; you're asked how you prioritize an ambiguous customer complaint versus an internal escalation from your manager — LP judgment, not algorithms
Timer does not pause if you switch tabs; the work simulation has its own timer separate from coding

Practice on KnowEase.AI

DSA Practice — Arrays →DSA Practice — Greedy →

Phone Screen

Round 2 of 5DSA / Coding

60 min

TreesSerializationBSTLP: Ownership

One Amazon interviewer. Opens with 2 LP questions (15–20 min) — typically Ownership and Customer Obsession — then one medium coding problem. Amazon splits the hour roughly 35–40 min technical, 20 min behavioral, but the LP portion runs first, not last. Your LP answers are evaluated on specificity and measurable outcomes. 'We improved the system' fails; 'latency dropped from 2.1 s to 340 ms, saving $X in infrastructure' passes.

Medium

What to expect

LP: 'Tell me about a project you pushed forward without being asked to (Ownership)' — they want the before/after metric, not just the narrative
LP: 'Tell me about a time you went out of your way for a customer or end user (Customer Obsession)' — internal tooling counts if you frame the user correctly
Coding: e.g., 'Serialize and deserialize a binary tree' or 'Lowest Common Ancestor of a BST' — trees are disproportionately common at the phone screen stage
Trap: candidates who solve the coding problem but can't articulate O(n) space cost of serialization get pushed back — Amazon expects complexity analysis unprompted

Practice on KnowEase.AI

DSA Practice — Trees BFS →

On-site Loop: Coding 1

Round 3 of 5DSA / Coding

60 min

BFSDFSGraphsGridLP: Deliver Results

LP questions (Deliver Results and Bias for Action are the most reported LP targets for this slot) followed by a medium-hard coding problem. Number of Islands and its variants are the single most frequently reported Amazon problem across SDE-1 loops. The interviewer is looking for a clean BFS/DFS implementation, correct visited-state handling, and proactive complexity discussion — not a brute-force with apologies.

What to expect

LP: 'Tell me about a time you shipped despite incomplete information or changing requirements (Bias for Action)' — scope creep scenarios work well here
LP: 'Tell me about a time you hit a wall and still delivered the project on time (Deliver Results)' — they want the obstacle to be real, not trivial
Coding: e.g., 'Number of Islands' (BFS/DFS on grid) or 'Rotting Oranges' (multi-source BFS) — Amazon uses grid problems as a proxy for graph traversal comfort
Trap: giving the same STAR story you used in the phone screen — interviewers compare notes post-loop and duplicate stories are explicitly flagged in the debrief

Full details unlocked with a free account

On-site Loop: Coding 2

Round 4 of 5DSA / Coding

60 min

DPTopological SortBFSGraphsLP: Dive Deep

Another LP + coding round. DP and topological sort are the most common problem families here. The LP focus shifts to Dive Deep and Are Right, A Lot — interviewers probe how you reached a conclusion under uncertainty, and whether you can name a decision you later reversed. Word Ladder and Alien Dictionary show up repeatedly in SDE-1 write-ups for this slot.

What to expect

LP: 'Walk me through the deepest technical root-cause analysis you've done (Dive Deep)' — vague 'I investigated the logs' stories die on follow-up; they want tool names and what you found
LP: 'Tell me about a time your technical judgment turned out to be wrong (Are Right, A Lot)' — the expected answer acknowledges the error, shows the correction, and shows what you changed
Coding: e.g., 'Word Ladder — minimum number of transformation steps' (BFS on implicit word graph) or 'Alien Dictionary' (topological sort on character ordering)
Follow-up: 'What if the dictionary has 10 million words — does your approach still work?' — they want you to call out the bottleneck, not just say yes

Full details unlocked with a free account

Hiring Manager Round

Round 5 of 5Behavioral / HM

45 min

LP: OwnershipLP: Earn TrustCareer Goals

Final check on culture and fit. The HM concentrates on Ownership and Earn Trust. As of 2024, Amazon has revived Bar Raiser involvement for entry-level loops — this round or the prior coding round may be the Bar Raiser slot. Expect 80% behavioral, occasional light technical questions about the team's domain. The HM is also selling you on the team, but they're still evaluating.

What to expect

LP: 'Tell me about something you took ownership of that was nobody's explicit responsibility' — they want initiative that had measurable impact, not just a volunteer project
LP: 'Describe a disagreement with a peer or manager — how did you get to alignment? (Earn Trust)' — the trap is candidates who make the other party wrong; Amazon wants evidence of genuine perspective-taking
Questions about the team's charter, what problems excite you in e-commerce/AWS/advertising, and what you want to build in the next year
Trap: showing up with zero questions about the team or acting like the offer is already decided — HMs notice and it reads as low Ownership

Full details unlocked with a free account

Questions — coming soon.

Company Guide — coming soon.

About Amazon SDE-1 Interviews

Amazon SDE-1 interviews are a dual filter: the DSA problems are medium-hard by FAANG standards, and the Leadership Principles behavioral questions carry equal weight. More candidates wash out on LP answers than on coding. Each on-site round opens with 2 LP questions (~15–20 min) before any code is written. Amazon revived Bar Raiser rounds for entry-level in 2024 — even new grads should expect one. Have at least 6 distinct STAR stories ready; interviewers share notes and will flag re-used examples.

See interview loops for other companies:

Microsoft Uber Flipkart Razorpay Walmart Coupang Rippling Rubrik Target

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