Amazon interview questions for freshers
A DSA-first loop with one thing no other company does the same way: the Bar Raiser. That interviewer comes from outside the hiring team, has an effective veto, and scores you against Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles. Strong coders get rejected here for having no structured stories.
First gate: Online Assessment — 2 coding problems + a work-style simulation. Clear this and the rest of the process is interviews.
The Amazon hiring process, round by round
What each stage tests, in the order you will face it. SDE-1 university hiring & internship-to-hire.
- 1
Online Assessment
2 coding problems + a work-style simulationTwo DSA problems against hidden test cases, plus a work simulation and behavioural survey mapped to the Leadership Principles. The OA usually arrives within about ten days of applying.
- 2
Phone screen
~60 minOne medium DSA problem with optimal complexity expected, plus at least one Leadership Principle question. You are being scored on both halves, not just the code.
- 3
Onsite loop
4–5 roundsTwo to three DSA rounds, a low-level design or system discussion pitched at junior level, and a hiring-manager round. Every round also carries its own Leadership Principle questions.
- 4
Bar Raiser
Interviewer from outside the team · effective vetoScored against the 16 Leadership Principles. Expect 20–25 minutes of behavioural questions inside a 60-minute round — answer in STAR and name the principle your story demonstrates.
Which role you land
The same process routes into different tracks at Amazon. What separates them is usually one section of the test.
Six-month internship that converts to a full-time SDE-1 offer.
Direct full-time entry role for new graduates.
Topics to prepare
What Amazon actually asks about across its rounds.
Sample Amazon interview questions
Grouped by the round they come from. Read them once, then answer them out loud — the second pass is the one that helps.
- 01Find the longest substring without repeating characters.
- 02Given an array of intervals, merge all overlapping intervals.
- 03Find the kth largest element in an unsorted array.
- 04Detect a cycle in a linked list and return the node where it begins.
- 05Given a binary tree, return its level-order traversal.
- 01Explain the time and space complexity of your solution, then improve one of them.
- 02How does a HashMap handle collisions internally?
- 03What is the difference between a process and a thread, and when would you use each?
- 04How would you debug a service that is slow only for 1% of requests?
- 01Design a URL shortener — walk through the data model first.
- 02Design an in-memory rate limiter for an API.
- 03Design a parking lot system (classes, relationships, edge cases).
- 01Tell me about a time you took ownership of something outside your responsibility. (Ownership)
- 02Describe a time you disagreed with a teammate and how it was resolved. (Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit)
- 03Tell me about a time you had to deliver with an unreasonable deadline. (Bias for Action, Deliver Results)
- 04Give an example of when you dug into data to find the real cause of a problem. (Dive Deep)
- 05Tell me about a time you failed. What did you change afterwards? (Learn and Be Curious)
These are questions in the pattern Amazon is reported to ask, compiled from public interview experiences — not a leaked question paper. The pattern is what transfers; the exact wording changes every cycle.
Where this came from
Last verified September 2026Compiled from Amazon’s published hiring programme and current public interview reports. Eligibility bars and test patterns change between drives — always confirm the cutoff on the official Amazon careers page or your placement cell before you plan around it.
Amazon interview FAQs
What is the Amazon interview process for freshers?
Amazon hires through SDE-1 university hiring & internship-to-hire. There are 4 stages: Online Assessment, Phone screen, Onsite loop, Bar Raiser. Two DSA problems against hidden test cases, plus a work simulation and behavioural survey mapped to the Leadership Principles. The OA usually arrives within about ten days of applying.
What is the eligibility criteria for Amazon?
BE/BTech/ME/MTech/MCA · recent graduating batches (typically the current and previous two) · no active backlogs. Hiring runs both on campus and off campus through amazon.jobs, and the 6-month SDE internship converts to SDE-1.
Which topics should I prepare for a Amazon interview?
Arrays & Hashing, Trees & Graphs, Dynamic Programming, Sliding Window, Heaps, Complexity Analysis, Low-Level Design, Leadership Principles. Weight them toward whichever round you keep failing in a mock.
How many rounds does Amazon take?
4 — 1) Online Assessment: Two DSA problems against hidden test cases, plus a work simulation and behavioural survey mapped to the Leadership Principles. The OA usually arrives within about ten days of applying. 2) Phone screen: One medium DSA problem with optimal complexity expected, plus at least one Leadership Principle question. You are being scored on both halves, not just the code. 3) Onsite loop: Two to three DSA rounds, a low-level design or system discussion pitched at junior level, and a hiring-manager round. Every round also carries its own Leadership Principle questions. 4) Bar Raiser: Scored against the 16 Leadership Principles. Expect 20–25 minutes of behavioural questions inside a 60-minute round — answer in STAR and name the principle your story demonstrates.
Which roles does Amazon offer freshers?
SDE Intern — Six-month internship that converts to a full-time SDE-1 offer. SDE-1 — Direct full-time entry role for new graduates.
Is Amazon a service or a product company?
Amazon is a product company. A DSA-first loop with one thing no other company does the same way: the Bar Raiser. That interviewer comes from outside the hiring team, has an effective veto, and scores you against Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles. Strong coders get rejected here for having no structured stories.
Preparing for more than one
Product companies first — that prep transfers almost entirely between them.
Answer these Amazon questions out loud
Reading a question bank is not preparation. Say your answers in a free AI mock interview and get instant feedback on structure, clarity and confidence.