Status: 1.75 YOE at a startup, L3
Position: SDE 1, but got offered SDE 2
Date: January 2020

Recruiter reached out to me via email. I then had a phone call with him, which then lead to an online assessment. I won't share the exact questions, but will point to what topics you need to look for.

Online assessment: Two LC easy/medium-level questions. There is one that required BFS which was the most advanced one. They're pretty much the same as others have posted in the forum here. One question resulted in having one test case failing, but all the rest passed. 30 minutes after I submitted, the recruiter called me back to say that I'm proceeding to the onsite in Seattle.

Onsite: I had five rounds of interviews. Each one, with the exception of the first one (which was hiring manager) followed the same format: 20 minutes of culture fit and behavioral questions, something along the lines of "tell me a time when you thought of the customer," or "tell me a time you saved a company money." I'd call it more of a "kool-aid/vibe check" kind of interview to make sure you're someone that Amazon wants to work with them.

Leadership principles

I recommend reading over these principles: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles. Understand what they pertain to exactly before your interview and try to think of some anecdotal stories or experiences you've had that pertain to these exact principles. They don't necessarily have to be something you've seen at work, and even if you can't think of something for one principle, it's totally okay to ask the interviewer to skip over that one and ask something else since you aren't expected to have every single situational experience (for example, I was asked how I resolved a nasty conflict, and I straight up said I never had one and would like to move onto something else). Expect to have each interview ask you about at least one of the principles.

Hiring manager interview

This interview will be just one long leadership principle interview, but it will also go deeper into your background and what your type of skillset is. You will not be asked technical questions in this round. This is also your chance to interview the team and your future manager and ask what tools you'll be using, what the projects are like, and what your manager has planned for the future and what their vision is for the product.

Technical interviews

Since a lot of the time will be spent on leadership principles, you'll be only left with about 30 minutes for the technical portion. All of the questions I received were medium level, and none were extremely hard but neither were they stupidly easy as well. I feel they were adequate in testing your brain skills in trying to optimize the solution and your understanding instead of knowing certain tricks to pass the problem. The topics I was quizzed on were heaps, binary trees, and array and string manipulation. No crazy graph searching problems or anything that would not have fit within the 30 minute time window without hassle. The system design was on a bigger scale of thought, so something like how would you make a large scale system efficient for a bunch of users.

Final thoughts

I expected to receive an SDE 1 offer since my buddy that has more experience than I did got an SDE 1 offer, but I instead received an SDE 2 offer. I think it's for the best since I would have more ownership and have a higher stake in decision making, especially on a brand-new team that the hiring manager is just starting to grow. But I would like to say that Amazon's interview process was the quickest and smoothest I've had and it's one that I felt was the most rewarding after completing it. Of course I've heard horror stories about working there, and I have read the infamous name and shame thread on r/cscareerquestions, but as long as you're not a muppet and you can handle the work, and you've actually got the soft skills to get your hiring manager to like you, I think Amazon is a great choice to join. After all, it is only really a vocal minority of the ginormous company that is Amazon that complains about getting PIP'd or the working conditions they supposedly face, and we really only hear one side of the situation.

Also, it's normal for your interested location to be in one place (mine was Bay Area) but for the interview to be taken in Seattle. I recommend doing the Seattle onsite anyways since the experience is pretty nice, plus Seattle is pretty cool to visit for a couple days.