Amazon SDE-1 In-Person Interview Experience (2026)

Background

• B.Tech from a Tier-1 IIT
• 1 YOE in Data Science
• Applied for Amazon SDE-1 to transition into Software Engineering

Timeline

Round-wise Experience

Online Assessment

The OA consisted of:

• 2 DSA coding questions (1 LC medium Binary Search based problem, 1 LC medium to hard DP based problem)
• Work Style Assessment
• Work Simulation / HR questionnaire

Round 1 (Onsite)

Interviewers: SDE-2 + SDE-1 (Shadow)

The interview began with a brief introduction, followed by two DSA problems and a short Leadership Principles (LP) discussion.

Problem 1

A variation of LeetCode 994 - Rotten Oranges.

Solved using Multi-Source BFS.

There were a couple of follow-up questions around edge cases and implementation.

Problem 2

LeetCode 33 - Search in Rotated Sorted Array

A straightforward implementation with complexity discussion.

Leadership Principles

• Tell me about a time you delivered under a tight deadline.
• Tell me about an interesting technical problem you solved.

Round 2 (Onsite)

Interviewer: SDE-2

This round started with a discussion about one of my projects before moving on to coding.

Problem 1

Given multiple currency conversion rates, determine the conversion rate from currency A to B.

Example:

• C = 10B
• D = 9B
• B = 110Z
• A = 2Z

Find the conversion rate from A to B.

I first discussed graph modeling and solved it using both:

• BFS
• DFS

Follow-up

Now suppose there are Q such conversion queries.

I proposed using Disjoint Set Union (Union Find) with weighted relationships to answer repeated queries efficiently, and discussed the associated trade-offs.

Problem 2

LeetCode 394 - Decode String

I had never solved this problem before.

Initially, I attempted a recursive solution. After a few hints from the interviewer, I switched to an iterative stack-based approach, which I was able to complete successfully.

Leadership Principles

• Tell me about a time you demonstrated ownership.
• Tell me about a disagreement with your manager and how you handled it.

Round 3 (Onsite)

Interviewer: Software Development Manager (SDM)

This was probably the most interesting round.

The flow was:

• Introduction
• Resume and project discussion
• AI fluency discussion
• One DSA problem
• Team overview

AI fluency Discussion

The interviewer spent a fair amount of time discussing how I use AI in my day-to-day workflow.

Some of the questions included:

• How do you use LLMs during development?
• How do you verify whether an AI-generated solution is correct?
• When do you trust an LLM and when do you not?

It felt more like a discussion than a Q&A session.

DSA Problem

Two knights are placed on an infinite chessboard.

Their starting coordinates are given, and both move using standard knight moves.

They move alternately.

Find the minimum total number of moves required for both knights to converge at the same position.

I initially proposed a straightforward BFS solution.

The interviewer then introduced multiple follow-up questions around:

• Improving the solution
• Optimizing the search
• Handling special cases
• Time and space complexity

This became more of a collaborative problem-solving discussion than simply coding.

Leadership Principles

• Tell me about a disagreement with your manager.
• Tell me about something new you learned recently.

After the Onsite

All three onsite interviews were completed on May 8.

Later that day, HR informed me that I had cleared all three technical rounds and that the feedback was positive.

I was told the Bar Raiser would be scheduled the following week.

Unfortunately, it ended up taking 37 days before my final interview was scheduled. 😅

Round 4 - Bar Raiser (Online)

Interviewer: SDE-3 (Different Team)

The interview began with introductions.

The first 40-45 minutes were almost entirely focused on Amazon Leadership Principles.

I had prepared STAR stories beforehand, which definitely helped.

DSA Problem

Given a binary string:

• Every 0 becomes 00
• Every 1 becomes 10

After performing this transformation k times, determine the value at the i-th index of the final string.

Example:

s = "01"
k = 1

After one iteration:

0010

i = 2

Answer = 1

I wasn't able to derive the optimal implementation during the interview.

However, I discussed my approach, reasoning, and possible optimizations with the interviewer, who seemed reasonably satisfied with the discussion.

Overall Experience

• Every DSA question had at least one follow-up, and most had several.

• Follow-ups usually involved:

  • Better time complexity
  • Better space complexity
  • Scaling the solution
  • Extending the original problem
  • Edge cases

• Interviewers cared much more about the thought process than writing code immediately. Though I was asked to write code for most of the problems in my preferred programming language post explaining my final approach either on paper or on white-board.

• Leadership Principles were equally important, especially during the Bar Raiser round.

• Preparing solid STAR stories beforehand helped a lot.

Overall, the interview experience was challenging but enjoyable. The discussions were interactive, and the interviewers consistently encouraged me to think aloud and explain my reasoning.

Finally, on June 30, I received my Amazon SDE-1 Offer. 🎉