SDE II Interview Prep
Curated practice for Amazon's SDE II loop, with a heavy focus on Leadership Principles.
About this loop
Amazon's interview is unique: every round, including coding rounds, weaves in Leadership Principles. Behavioral signal is not concentrated in one round - it's distributed across the loop. SDE II candidates face a Bar Raiser round (an experienced cross-team interviewer with veto power) where the bar is calibrated to overall company hiring quality, not just team needs. Coding rounds tend to be Easy-to-Medium with strong emphasis on edge cases, error handling, and code quality. System design enters the loop at SDE II - expect bounded designs (file storage, order tracking, notification systems) rather than internet-scale architectures. Have a STAR story prepared for each of the 16 Leadership Principles before you walk in.
The interview loop
- 1Recruiter screen30 minutes. Logistics, level calibration, Leadership Principles introduction.
- 2Online assessmentTwo coding problems (~70 minutes) plus a work simulation. Auto-scored. Pass to advance.
- 3Phone screen60 minutes with a hiring manager or senior engineer. One coding problem plus 2-3 Leadership Principle questions.
- 4Onsite: Coding round60 minutes. One to two coding problems. Edge cases, error handling, and code quality matter as much as the algorithm.
- 5Onsite: System design60 minutes. Bounded scope - design a system that solves a concrete business problem (notification service, inventory tracker).
- 6Onsite: Bar Raiser60 minutes. Cross-team senior engineer, has veto power. Mix of coding and deep Leadership Principle drilling. The hardest round in the loop.
- 7Onsite: Hiring manager60 minutes. Behavioral focus, role fit, Leadership Principles relevant to the team's work.
What Amazon actually evaluates
- →Specific, recent STAR stories tied to Leadership Principles
- →Customer Obsession - explicit reasoning about end-user impact
- →Bias for Action - 'I shipped a fix in 2 hours' beats 'I spent a week analyzing'
- →Ownership - taking responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks
- →Frugality - simple solutions over fancy ones
- →Disagree and Commit - showing you push back AND align
- →Edge cases handled without being asked
Topics tested
Behavioral
Amazon's interview is a behavioral interview with coding rounds attached. Have one strong STAR story per Leadership Principle. Recent stories (last 12-18 months) score higher.
Algorithms
Coding rounds skew Easy-to-Medium. Cleanliness and edge cases beat raw performance. Don't optimize prematurely - get a working solution first, then improve.
System Design
Bounded designs at SDE II level. Practice service-style designs: notification system, order tracking, S3 lite, URL shortener with analytics.
Data Structures
Hash maps, queues, and trees are the workhorses. Amazon uses them constantly in coding rounds.
Databases
Comes up in system design. DynamoDB-style thinking helps - partition keys, secondary indexes, hot partition avoidance.
Object-Oriented Design
Sometimes used in design rounds with a service shape (parking lot, library system). Showing clean class boundaries matters.
Curated practice questions
333 MCQs and 100 coding challenges, grouped by topic. Free preview shows question titles - premium unlocks full content.
Behavioral · 63 MCQs
Browse all in Behavioral →Algorithms · 77 MCQs
Browse all in Algorithms →System Design · 68 MCQs
Browse all in System Design →Data Structures · 44 MCQs
Browse all in Data Structures →Databases · 49 MCQs
Browse all in Databases →Object-Oriented Design · 32 MCQs
Browse all in Object-Oriented Design →Algorithms - Coding challenges · 71 challenges
Browse all coding challenges →Data Structures - Coding challenges · 29 challenges
Browse all coding challenges →Practice in mock interview format
Behavioral and system design rounds reward practice with a live AI interviewer that probes follow-ups, not silent reading.
Start an AI mock interview →Frequently asked questions
How important are Leadership Principles really?
More important than the technical rounds, in practice. Amazon will reject a strong coder who fails behavioral signal. They will sometimes hire a borderline coder with stellar Leadership Principle stories. Memorize all 16, prepare 2-3 STAR stories per principle, and practice telling them in 90 seconds.
What is the Bar Raiser actually evaluating?
The Bar Raiser is a cross-team senior engineer or PM, trained to assess whether a candidate raises Amazon's overall hiring bar, not just whether they fit this team. They have veto power. They go deeper on Leadership Principles than other interviewers and probe for inconsistencies in your stories.
How do I prepare STAR stories for Leadership Principles?
Write 6-10 specific incidents from your last 18 months. For each, identify which 2-3 Leadership Principles it demonstrates. Practice telling each story in 90 seconds: Situation, Task, Action (heavy on this), Result with metrics. Avoid generic 'I led a team' framing - get specific.
Is Amazon SDE II equivalent to Google L4?
Roughly, yes - both target 3-5 YOE engineers. Compensation and scope are comparable. The interview process emphasizes different things: Google weights raw technical signal harder, Amazon weights behavioral and ownership signal harder. Many engineers find Amazon's loop more exhausting due to the behavioral depth across every round.
What if I get the Bar Raiser as my first onsite round?
It happens and it's intentional - they want to set the bar early. Don't assume you've already failed if it goes hard. Bar Raisers push to find your ceiling, so you'll feel pressure even in a strong performance. Stay specific in your STAR stories and don't BS.
How often does Amazon hire SDE II externally vs promoting from SDE I?
Amazon hires SDE II externally at high volume year-round across AWS, retail, ads, and devices. Internal promotion from SDE I is also common but slower. External hiring is your faster path if you have 3+ YOE elsewhere.