Software Development Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Amazon with 3.5 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 59% positive. To compare, the company-average is 52.9% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Development Engineer roles take an average of 36 days to get hired, when considering 22 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Amazon overall takes an average of 32 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer according to 22 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 29%
One on one interview: 23%
Skills test: 14%
IQ intelligence test: 9%
Background check: 9%
Personality test: 9%
Presentation: 6%
Group panel interview: 3%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon
Interview
There was an initial phone screen that was almost entirely technical questions. There were two programming questions that I typed into a shared editor and a few more general questions about data structures and algorithms. The interviewer was a little disinterested.
After the phone screen I was invited for a full day of 6 interviews. Since I had applied to two teams there were two manager interviews and 4 technical interviews. They really hammered me with behavioral questions ("Tell me about a time when..."). I could see this getting exhausting if I wasn't expecting it. I definitely recommend jotting down more than one example for each of the Amazon leadership principles. They didn't ask about them directly but most questions were probing in the direction of one or more. Even the technical interviewers ask these kinds of questions. They are definitely looking to see if I would fit in with the Amazon culture as much as whether I was technically qualified. Everyone was extremely nice and obviously competent making the experience much less stressful than it could have been.
I got the offer the next day via a recruiter e-mail and phone call. Over the next couple weeks the hiring managers and recruiters kept in constant contact. I met with the managers again in a less formal setting. They were very approachable and honest and willing to answer any questions I had. I felt a little pressure, but they were professional and reasonably patient as long as I kept them in the loop.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Lots of behavioral questions probing different Amazon leadership principles. The white board coding questions were similar to those from Cracking the Coding Interview or a similar book. Definitely study for this interview and practice programming without a computer.
It started with an OA, and then after a few weeks, I got invited to four rounds of interviews: technical and behavioral at 3 of the 4, and behavioral only at one.
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Calgary, AB) in June 2026
Interview
Online Assessment is the first step in the process. I didn’t have an HR phone screening and went straight to the OA after applying. It was sent to me about a week after I submitted my application.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The first question is LeetCode style algorithms question, and the second question gives a full stack repo (choice of Java, NodeJS, or Django) and asks to solve a backend issue which is causing a bug in the frontend. Unit tests must pass to pass the second question. You can run both backend/frontend indivdually or together
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Santa Clara, CA) in June 2026
Interview
Recruiter reached out and set up an onsite loop after the initial steps. Four back to back rounds in one day. Two coding heavy rounds run by senior engineers, one round with the hiring manager, and one behavioral round with a bar raiser. Mix of leadership principles and data structures throughout. Heard back within a week.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard BFS grid problem. Given a grid, find the time for all cells to reach a target state where the spread happens one layer at a time.
How did you answer: Clarified the constraints, walked through the approach, then coded a clean BFS from all starting points at once. Tracked the number of layers until everything was covered.