Amazon SDE-1 Interview Process 2026: Online Assessment, Coding Rounds and Leadership Principles
Amazon’s SDE-1 hiring for freshers has two halves that carry equal weight: data structures and algorithms, and the Leadership Principles. Most candidates prepare only the first. Here’s how the online assessment and the interview rounds work in 2026 and how to prepare for both.
One caveat first. Amazon doesn’t publish a fixed pattern for India campus and off-campus hiring, and the test length and number of rounds differ between drives and teams. What follows is the shape candidates describe for recent SDE-1 hiring. Treat your recruiter’s emails and the on-screen instructions as the final word.
The process at a glance
| Stage | What it checks | Format (as reported) |
|---|---|---|
| Application | Resume, graduation year, sometimes a CGPA bar set by the campus | Campus drive or amazon.jobs |
| Online assessment | Two coding problems, then how you’d act at work | 90 to 105 minutes of coding, plus a work style survey |
| Technical interviews | DSA, CS fundamentals, basic design, Leadership Principles | Two to four rounds of about an hour each, on video |
| Bar Raiser round | Whether you raise the team’s standard | One of the rounds, led by an interviewer from another team |
Pattern as reported for 2026 hiring. There is usually no separate HR interview; behavioural questions are part of every round.
Who can apply
Fresher SDE-1 roles are filled through Amazon’s university hiring, on campus and through postings on amazon.jobs. Each posting states which graduation years it accepts, and they differ: some take only the current batch, some the last two or three. Check the posting itself rather than a jobs aggregator. Pay figures online vary too widely to rely on.
The online assessment
Coding. Two problems, medium to medium-hard, in a timed editor with hidden test cases. Reports put the time at 90 to 105 minutes for both. Topics that come up most:
- Arrays and strings: sliding window, two pointers, prefix sums, intervals.
- Hash maps and heaps: top K, frequency problems, scheduling.
- Trees and graphs: BFS and DFS, shortest path on a grid, connected components.
- Greedy and binary search on the answer.
- Dynamic programming, usually one-dimensional or on a grid.
Passing every test case on one problem and most on the other is commonly reported as enough to move on, but there’s no published cut-off. Brute force that times out earns little, so think about complexity before typing.
Work style survey. After the coding part comes a set of statements about how you work, where you pick which of two describes you better or how strongly you agree. It’s built on the Leadership Principles. It isn’t a formality: answer consistently and honestly, and read the principles before the test so you know what Amazon values. Some assessments also include a short work simulation with workplace scenarios.
The technical interviews
Each round is about an hour with one interviewer, and usually has the same shape: ten to fifteen minutes of behavioural questions, then one or two coding problems in a shared editor with no autocomplete.
- Clarify first. Ask about input size, duplicates, empty input. Jumping straight to code is the most common reason for a weak review.
- Say the brute force, then improve it. State the time and space cost of each version.
- Write clean, complete code. Real variable names, edge cases handled, no pseudocode.
- Test it by hand with a small example before the interviewer asks.
Beyond DSA, freshers report questions on OOP design (a parking lot, a library system), and on OS, DBMS and networking basics tied to their projects. Full system design is rarely expected at SDE-1, but being able to sketch the classes for a small system is.
Leadership Principles and the Bar Raiser
Amazon has sixteen Leadership Principles, and interviewers are each assigned a few to test. The ones freshers are asked about most: Customer Obsession, Ownership, Learn and Be Curious, Dive Deep, Bias for Action, Deliver Results, and Earn Trust.
Questions start with “Tell me about a time…”: you missed a deadline, you disagreed with a teammate, you fixed something nobody asked you to, you learned a tool fast. Answer in the STAR order: the situation, your task, the action you took, and the result, with a number if you have one. Say “I”, not “we”; the interviewer needs to know what you did.
One round is led by a Bar Raiser, an experienced interviewer from outside the hiring team whose job is to ask whether you’d raise the standard of the team. Their view carries a lot of weight in the final decision. You won’t be told which round it is, so treat every round as that one.
Prepare six to eight stories from projects, internships, college clubs or hackathons, each usable for two or three principles. Write them down, then practise saying them in two minutes.
A six-week plan
Weeks 1 and 2: arrays, strings, hashing, two pointers and sliding window: three problems a day, each explained out loud. Weeks 3 and 4: trees, graphs, heaps, binary search and basic dynamic programming. Week 5: timed pairs of medium problems in 90 minutes, and your Leadership Principles stories written and rehearsed. Week 6: full mock interviews: behavioural questions first, then a problem solved while talking, in a plain editor. Our tech interview plan has a day-by-day routine you can stretch to six weeks.
Practising the interview with Keeter
Amazon’s online assessment is proctored, and its interviews have their own rules. Don’t use outside help of any kind where it isn’t allowed, AI tools included; it can cost you the offer. Follow the rules Amazon sets for every round.
The behavioural half is the part you can’t learn by solving problems alone: it has to be said out loud. Keeter, an AI interview assistant, runs mock interviews from your resume: it asks questions out loud, you answer by voice, and you get feedback after each answer and a report on your weak areas. The first 5 minutes are free, then it’s ₹4 a minute with no subscription.
Quick answers
How many coding questions are in the Amazon online assessment?
Two, as reported, at a medium to medium-hard level, with 90 to 105 minutes for both.
How many interview rounds are there for SDE-1?
Two to four after the online assessment, depending on the drive. One of them is the Bar Raiser round.
Is there an HR round?
Usually not a separate one. Leadership Principles questions are asked in every technical round instead.
Does Amazon ask system design for freshers?
Not full system design. Expect object-oriented design of a small system and questions on how your own projects were built.
Which language should I use?
Any mainstream one you’re fluent in. Java, C++ and Python are the common choices; interviewers judge the logic, not the language.