Amazon | SDE 2 | Selected | Aug 2026 | BLR
Heyaaa!
Giving Back to the Community 🙌
First of all, thanks a lot to everyone in this community. I've learned a lot from reading other people's interview experiences, so hopefully this helps someone else too.
I applied to all the open SDE II roles. Since one account has a limit on active applications, I used two. 😅
Round 0 — OA
The OA had an AI-related repository/code section and 1 DSA question (don't remember 🥲).
Round 1 — DSA
The interviewer was an SDE III. We started with 2 LP questions: (Learn & Be Curious) and (Ownership). (~10 mins)
He then started with a custom coding problem, which was basically a BFS problem. He kept adding complexity to it, and eventually it became a Multi-Source BFS problem. I solved it.
There was one edge case I knew I hadn't covered, but there were only ~15 minutes left and the interviewer seemed fine with the solution, so I decided not to bring it up. And then he said, "That's it. Do you have any questions?" At this point, I was expecting another question.
How can HE miss the edge case? 😂
Anyway, I did this. Please don't do this. If you know there's an edge case, just mention it.
Feedback from HR: Positive
Round 2 — LLD
The problem was somewhat similar to an Amazon Locker, but basically the reverse. Instead of the Amazon delivery person picking up a return package from the customer, the customer books a slot at the nearest drop store and physically goes there to drop the package.
I took some time initially to clarify the requirements and then started writing the code. In the middle of it, the interviewer suddenly went in another direction: "How will you find the nearest drop store from the customer's location?"
I said I'd use the concept of geosharding. That's basically the only thing I could come up with because, well... I've never done HLD before. 😅 He wanted to go deeper into it and even gave me a hint: "Think about how Uber does this." Unfortunately, I didn't know how Uber does it.
So I basically pointed my cursor towards the clock and indirectly communicated: "Bro, this is LLD, not HLD. Let's finish the LLD first." 😂
I ended up spending around 35 minutes writing the code, and as expected, there wasn't really much time left to discuss anything else. This was also the only round where I wasn't able to answer something.
Then came the LP questions: (Dive Deep) and (Invent and Simplify).
Feedback from HR: I Didn't ask.
Round 3 — Bar Raiser
Started with around 10 minutes of LP questions. (Customer Obsession & Deliver Results)
The coding problem was similar to Find the Safest Path in a Grid. LeetCode calls it Medium. No. It's Hard. 😂
I had never solved it before, so I obviously didn't know the intended solution. I started with a very, very naive approach, then optimized it twice while discussing the time and space complexity at each step. Eventually, I came up with the final solution: Multi-Source BFS + DFS on Binary Search.
The interviewer still wanted me to optimize it further. 😭 But eventually I solved it and wrote the code.
One tip from this round: If you're in a similar situation where you don't immediately know the optimal solution, start writing code early. I ended up with only around 15 minutes to write ~65 lines of code and explain them. Not recommended. 😂
Feedback from HR: Didn't ask because I knew I raised the bar. 😎
Round 4 — System Design
This round was taken by the HM, and she was cool. Started with LP questions: (Earn Trust) and (Have Backbone & Disagree and Commit).
She gave me a custom problem, which I believe was related to something the team was actually working on. The problem was somewhat similar to syncing configurations across different devices. She asked several design-related questions, and I was able to answer all of them.
This was probably my smoothest round.
Feedback from HR: Didn't ask because I knew I killed it. 😎
Final Verdict
Selected 🎉
Bonus — How I Prepared
DSA: I completed Striver's entire sheet + around 200 additional questions that I collected from LeetCode posts and GitHub repositories.
LLD: I had watched one YouTube playlist on LLD a long time ago. For the actual preparation, I also used AI to dry-run LLD problems and discuss different approaches. Solved around 26+ LLD problems.
HLD: I completed the entire Hello Interview system design playlist and watched a few videos from the Deep Dive playlist.
Honestly, I think this is more than enough to get started.
I also solved a few additional design problems from other YouTube videos.
I ended up watching the Hello Interview playlist 3 times because my system design round got rescheduled three times. 😂
==== FOR AMAZON LPs ARE SUPAR IMPORTANT DO NOT MISS THEM ====
Overall, the preparation took around 1.5 months. During this period, I was completely focused on interview preparation since I was on my notice period. Thankfully, my manager was extremely supportive and used to help me with my Jiras while I was preparing.
Really grateful to have this kinda manager. ❤️
That's pretty much it. Hope this helps someone preparing for Amazon SDE II.
All the best! 🚀
Comp: https://leetcode.com/discuss/post/8499696/amazon-sde-2-compensation-blr-aug-2026-b-02ob/
