Table of contents

• Where do I apply for a software development role at Amazon?
• What topics should I study for?
• What are some example Amazon technical questions?
• What are some example Amazon behavioral questions?
• How long is the entire Amazon interview process?
• What makes Amazon's interview process different?
• What is the Amazon interview like for a full time software engineering role?
• What are the levels and salary for a software engineer at Amazone?

Where do I apply for a software development role at Amazon?

You will need to upload your resume and provide other relevant information to the Amazon software development careers site, or use this LinkedIn strategy to find a recruiter to contact.

If you pass the initial screening, you'll be asked to talk with a recruiter.

What topics should I study for?

• Two pointers
• Sliding window
• Linked list manipulation
• Dynamic programming
• Graph (and tree) traversal
  • Breadth first search
  • Depth first search
• Sorting
• Heaps
• Modified Binary Search
• Time/space analysis
• Object oriented programming
• Design

What are some example Amazon technical questions?

• Find the number of islands on the map.
• Given different clases and their prerequisites, return a valid order of course schedule to take to finish all courses.
• Given a string, return the longest substring without repeating characters.
• Given an array which represents the cost of a stock each day, find the maximum profit you can make by buying and selling from those days.
• Given a set of words, return the minimum number of single-character transformations it would take to get from one given word to another given word.
• Given an array of integers and a target, return the three integers that add up to the target.
• Given a list of integers, find the length of the longest increasing subsequence of numbers in it.
• Given an array of n linked lists, merge all linked lists into one sorted linked list.
• Given a string with lower-case letters and parenthesis, reverse the strings in each pair of matching parenthesis. Return the result without any brackets.
• You're given the head of a linked list which has integers separated by 0's. Merge the integers between the 0's into a single node whose value is the sum of the merged nodes.
• Given the heads of two linked lists, return the node where the two lists intersect.
• Given an array of integers, return the minimum number of elements that must be changed so that every subarray of a given length will have the same sum.
• Given two strings, return whether one is an anagram of the other.
• Given an array of strings, return a 2D array where anagrams are grouped together.
• You're given a grid with cells that represent land and water. There is one island on this grid. Return the size of the island's perimeter.
• Find all permutations of an array of numbers with duplicates.
• Implement a minimum heap data structure.
• Implement a class for a dynamically resizing array.
• Implement an LRU cache.
• Design system for vending machine.
• Design system for a photo sharing app.
• Design system for Spotify.
• Design system for Amazon (online shopping).
• Design an online management system for uploading and evaluating files for assignments.
• Design a short link website.
• Design a parking lot system.
• Design Amazon lockers for multiple locations.

What are some example Amazon behavioral questions?

• Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a very difficult client.
• Describe a time when you disagreed with your manager.
• Describe a time when you had conflict with a team member.
• Tell us about a time you had to make a decision quickly with limited data and detail. What was the outcome?
• Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond for a client.
• Give me an example of a time you had to go beyond your role responsibilities. What was your goal? What did you do?
• How do you handle failure?
• Give me an example of a time when something you tried to accomplish something and failed.
• How do you deal with roadblocks?
• How do you prioritize tasks?
• Tell me about a time you completed a complex or ambiguous project.
• Tell me about a time when you took on a task that was not your responsibility.
• What was one critical feedback you received? What did you learn from it?
• Tell me about a time when you solved a complex problem with a simple solution.
• Tell me about a time when you faced a tough deadline and how you managed it.
• Describe a time you improved the morale and productivity of your team.
• Tell me about a time you missed a deadline or could not meet a commitment.
• Describe a situation where you had several solutions and had to pick one.
• When you’re working on a team, what roles or projects do you gravitate toward and why?

How long is the entire Amazon interview process?

It takes around one month to get to the offer stage after a recruiter reaches out.

What makes Amazon's interview process different?

The company expects employees to follow what they call Leadership Principles. There are 16 Leadership Principles (LP). Prepare by memorizing examples and stories of how you follow these principles.

Leadership Principles you may be asked about:

• Customer obsession
• Ownership
• Learn and be curious
• Think big
• Insist on the highest standards
• Bias for action
• Earn trust
• Dive deep
• Have backbone; Disagree and commit
• Deliver results

Other principles that you're less likely to be asked about:

• Invent and simplify
• Are right, a lot
• Hire and develop the best
• Frugality
• Strive to be Earth's best employer
• Success and scale bring broad responsibility

It's overwhelming, so focus on stories that can cover multiple LPs. Make sure you're prepared for follow-up questions that ask for more details.

Moreover, one of your interviews will have a bar-raiser, usually a person who's more senior or received a bit more interview training, and is outside the team you're being hired for. Their purpose is to provide objective feedback. Their evaluation will be weighed more than every other interviewers' feedback. One thing bar-raisers say themselves: a bad Leadership Principles round is almost always a "no hire," even when the coding went well. A strong LP round, on the other hand, can carry a borderline technical performance. Prepare around ten stories, not two or three, because the follow-up questions go deep on each one.

A few more things that make Amazon different in 2026:

• No AI tools, period. Amazon formally banned generative AI use during interviews and enforces it. Don't use it unless your written candidate instructions explicitly permit it for a specific exercise.
• Some loops now include a "GenAI fluency" round. Rollout is uneven, so ask your recruiter if yours does. When it's real, the content is applied AI judgment: prompt strategy, retrieval-augmented generation, handling hallucinations, and knowing when not to use an LLM.
• Your code never runs. Amazon's interview tool (Livecode) has syntax highlighting but can't compile or execute anything. Interviewers care about approach, speed, and how you test by hand, not typos. Practice tracing your code out loud through your own test cases.
• More loops are in person since Amazon moved to five days a week in office. Expect location to matter, and remote roles to be rare.

What is the Amazon interview like for a full time software engineering role?

Recruiter phone screen (10-30 minutes)

This is an optional screening that some candidates may not need.

Prepare to talk about your professional background, skills, and career goals.

Online assessment (90-120 minutes)

The screening will be on HackerRank. The coding part has two questions on DSA, and you're expected to pass as many tests as you can. Depending on your track, there's also a "work simulation" (a mock Amazon inbox where you triage emails and make prioritization calls, scored against the Leadership Principles) or a short work-styles questionnaire.

There are no retakes, and a failed OA usually means waiting six months to a year before reapplying, so don't attempt it cold. Experienced candidates used to skip the OA routinely; since the hiring bar tightened, more senior candidates get one too.

Interview loop (one day)

• 3-4 total interviews, each are 60 minutes:
  • 1 behavioral interview focused on LP and followup questions
  • 1 interview partially focused on LP, and partially focused on object-oriented design
  • 1 multipart DSA questions
  • Optionally: Some interviewers will chat with the hiring manager of the team they're interviewing for. Sometimes this conversation is done before the full interview loop.

Optional: Team matching

Sometimes if the original role the application was for falls through, then the candidate may be connected to other hiring managers.

What are the levels and salary for a software engineer at Amazone?

*Note that compensation varies based on location. These estimates are likely based on the USA HCOL market.

The compensation package will likely include:

• Base salary
• Equity that's back loaded. You get 5% your 1st year, 15% the 2nd year, 40% your 3rd year, 40% your 4th year. (For example, if you leave before the end of your second year, you'll receive less than 20% of your promised stocks.)
• Sign-on bonus that's only given once when hired.

Unlike other big tech companies, Amazon employees do not get annual bonuses.