Amazon SDE 1 Complete Interview Experience: From the Mentors and Learners of CodeKerdos
Amazon’s interview process is structured, layered, and principle-driven. It tests not only how you code but how you think, communicate, and align with Amazon’s Leadership Principles (LPs).
Getting into Amazon is every developer’s dream — and for good reason. The company is known for its high engineering standards, strong leadership culture, and a selection process that filters not just for coding ability but for long-term potential.
At CodeKerdos, we’re proud to have several mentors who currently work at Amazon, along with learners who’ve successfully cleared Amazon interviews through our training programs.
Drawing from their combined experience, we’ve curated this in-depth, structured guide that walks you through each round of the Amazon SDE 1 Interview Process — what to expect, how to prepare, and the mindset that truly sets successful candidates apart.
Round 1- Online Assessment
Round 2- DSA + Leadership Principles
Round 3- Low-Level Design (LLD)
Round 4- Bar Raiser
Each round is a filter, not just of skill, but of mindset.
Round 1: Online Assessment (OA)
Duration: 90 Minutes
Difficulty: Medium
Focus: DSA, Business Simulation, Leadership Principles
This round acts as your gateway into Amazon’s technical loop. It includes:
Two LeetCode Medium-level DSA problems (common patterns: arrays, strings, hash maps, greedy algorithms).
Virtual office case scenarios that simulate Amazon-style work situations.
Leadership Principles (LP) questions, testing how you think and respond under constraints.
What Amazon looks for:
– Clean, structured reasoning.
– The ability to balance correctness, clarity, and efficiency.
– Consistency with LPs such as “Dive Deep,” “Customer Obsession,” and “Ownership.”
Our Mentor’s Tip:
“It’s not just about writing the correct code, it’s about communicating why it’s correct. Amazon interviewers evaluate your reasoning, not just your syntax.”
Our learners often practice mock OAs where they explain their logic step-by-step while coding, a proven way to simulate the real Amazon mindset.
Round 2: DSA + Leadership Principles
Duration: 60 Minutes
Difficulty: Medium to Hard
Questions: 2 (1 LC Medium, 1 LC Hard)
Focus: DSA and Leadership Principles
Typical Breakdown:
Q1: Medium — often sliding window, hash maps, or binary search problems.
Q2: Hard — usually dynamic programming, graph traversal, or recursion-heavy questions.
After coding, expect behavioral follow-ups like:
– “Tell me about a time you failed.”
– “When did you take ownership without being asked?”
Emphasis:
You’ll be judged on clarity of communication, code optimality, and how you handle trade-offs.
From a CodeKerdos Mentor (SDE2 at Amazon):
“Even if your first approach isn’t optimal, walk your interviewer through your reasoning. Amazon values candidates who think out loud and refine their ideas logically.”
At CodeKerdos, our mock technical rounds blend DSA with LP-based behavioral coaching — mirroring this exact format.
Round 3: Low-Level Design (LLD)
Duration: 60–70 Minutes
Difficulty: Hard
Focus: Logical Reasoning, Class Design, System Thinking
This round evaluates how you architect systems and design scalable modules.
Sample Problem:
“Design an LFU Cache.”
You’ll be expected to:
– Define class structures with clarity.
– Explain data flow and module interactions.
– Write minimal viable code demonstrating key functionality.
– Justify time and space complexity.
Mentor Insights:
Our mentors often share that LLD rounds test thinking patterns more than code length.
The interviewer wants to see how you break down complexity and reason about trade-offs (e.g., performance vs maintainability).
At CodeKerdos, our Bootcamp trains learners through real-world system design problems like:
– Design a Parking Lot
– Implement a Cache
– Design an Elevator System
Each session ends with personalized mentor feedback, the same way Amazon interviewers dissect design discussions.
Round 4: The Bar Raiser
Duration: 60–70 Minutes
Difficulty: Moderate to High
Focus: Depth of Understanding + Leadership Principles
This is Amazon’s signature round — and the toughest to ace.
The Bar Raiser is an experienced interviewer, often from a different team, whose job is to ensure you meet Amazon’s high hiring bar globally.
What to Expect:
1. Deep discussion about your current project or research work.
2. Questions linking directly to LPs like:
“Invent and Simplify”
“Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit”
“Deliver Results”
3. Assessment of your impact, clarity, and ownership.
Bar Raiser’s goal:
To see if you’d thrive at Amazon long-term, not just survive the role.
CodeKerdos’ Approach:
We run Bar Raiser simulation sessions, where mentors evaluate learners’ ability to defend their design choices, discuss trade-offs, and demonstrate Amazon-style leadership thinking.
“The key is to think like an Amazonian—analytical, customer-obsessed, and principled.”
In practice, that means slowing down to clarify the problem, stating assumptions, and choosing the simplest correct approach. Explain trade-offs openly, measure impact when you tell stories, and show how you learned from failures. Keep your code readable, your reasoning audible, and your decisions defensible. If you can do those consistently, the interview feels less like a test and more like a thoughtful engineering conversation.