Amazon

Systems Development Engineer II Interview Experience - Barcelona, Spain

March 1, 2025

Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I interviewed with Amazon.

I had one screening and then a loop of four interviews for this role.

System Design Interview
Three additional interviews

For the most part, I was asked a lot of STAR questions, focusing on Amazon's Leadership Principles.

Overall, I was asked about ten leadership questions.

Questions

Create the System Design for a Cache application, used to cache Images and Videos.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Amazon Systems Development Engineer II role in Barcelona, Spain.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

Amazon's interview process for their Systems Development Engineer II roles in Barcelona, Spain is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive100%

Neutral0%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Amazon's Systems Development Engineer II interview process in Barcelona, Spain.

Amazon Work Experiences

Great Company to start in Big Tech

Systems Development Engineer II • Current Employee

London, England, United Kingdom

September 17, 2025

Pros: Projects, really smart people, scalability, use of AWS. The company you should start working for when you get into the big tech league has really strong points, such as documentation, project management, and things you never thought you'd be working on.

Cons: At this point, instead of being the "world's biggest startup" (Jassy's words), it feels more like a behemoth, similar to a bank in terms of regulations and bureaucracy. They should fire more managers. At this point, most of them are useless.

Great Company to start in Big Tech

Systems Development Engineer II • Current Employee

London, England, United Kingdom

September 17, 2025

Pros: Projects, really smart people, scalability, use of AWS. The company you should start working for when you get into the big tech league has really strong points, such as documentation, project management, and things you never thought you'd be working on.

Cons: At this point, instead of being the "world's biggest startup" (Jassy's words), it feels more like a behemoth, similar to a bank in terms of regulations and bureaucracy. They should fire more managers. At this point, most of them are useless.

PIP culture is real, and it will hit you

Systems Development Engineer II • Former Employee

Pros: Well paying, until it's not.

Cons: Managers are incentivized to lie and create impossible performance goals for ICs in order to push them out. It's stressful as hell doing everything you think you can, even when seeking feedback, only to be told it's all wrong.

PIP culture is real, and it will hit you

Systems Development Engineer II • Former Employee

Pros: Well paying, until it's not.

Cons: Managers are incentivized to lie and create impossible performance goals for ICs in order to push them out. It's stressful as hell doing everything you think you can, even when seeking feedback, only to be told it's all wrong.

Great fit. Love it

Systems Development Engineer II • Current Employee

Seattle, Washington, United States

Pros: I have results-based objectives that are almost always solved, and solvable with code. With code and agentic AI to hit scale, there is never time stuck in 'toil' work.

Cons: This is a minor gripe compared to the above, but full-time office is a wash for my personal productivity. It's a lot easier now that my kids are older.

Great fit. Love it

Systems Development Engineer II • Current Employee

Seattle, Washington, United States

Pros: I have results-based objectives that are almost always solved, and solvable with code. With code and agentic AI to hit scale, there is never time stuck in 'toil' work.

Cons: This is a minor gripe compared to the above, but full-time office is a wash for my personal productivity. It's a lot easier now that my kids are older.

Great Company to start in Big Tech

Systems Development Engineer II • Current Employee

London, England, United Kingdom

September 17, 2025

Pros: Projects, really smart people, scalability, use of AWS. The company you should start working for when you get into the big tech league has really strong points, such as documentation, project management, and things you never thought you'd be working on.

Cons: At this point, instead of being the "world's biggest startup" (Jassy's words), it feels more like a behemoth, similar to a bank in terms of regulations and bureaucracy. They should fire more managers. At this point, most of them are useless.

3.0
Great Company to start in Big Tech
Systems Development Engineer II • Current Employee
London, England, United Kingdom
September 17, 2025
Pros: Projects, really smart people, scalability, use of AWS. The company you should start working for when you get into the big tech league has really strong points, such as documentation, project management, and things you never thought you'd be working on.
Cons: At this point, instead of being the "world's biggest startup" (Jassy's words), it feels more like a behemoth, similar to a bank in terms of regulations and bureaucracy. They should fire more managers. At this point, most of them are useless.

PIP culture is real, and it will hit you

Systems Development Engineer II • Former Employee

Pros: Well paying, until it's not.

Cons: Managers are incentivized to lie and create impossible performance goals for ICs in order to push them out. It's stressful as hell doing everything you think you can, even when seeking feedback, only to be told it's all wrong.

1.0
PIP culture is real, and it will hit you
Systems Development Engineer II • Former Employee
July 29, 2025
Pros: Well paying, until it's not.
Cons: Managers are incentivized to lie and create impossible performance goals for ICs in order to push them out. It's stressful as hell doing everything you think you can, even when seeking feedback, only to be told it's all wrong.

Great fit. Love it

Systems Development Engineer II • Current Employee

Seattle, Washington, United States

Pros: I have results-based objectives that are almost always solved, and solvable with code. With code and agentic AI to hit scale, there is never time stuck in 'toil' work.

Cons: This is a minor gripe compared to the above, but full-time office is a wash for my personal productivity. It's a lot easier now that my kids are older.

5.0
Great fit. Love it
Systems Development Engineer II • Current Employee
Seattle, Washington, United States
July 6, 2025
Pros: I have results-based objectives that are almost always solved, and solvable with code. With code and agentic AI to hit scale, there is never time stuck in 'toil' work.
Cons: This is a minor gripe compared to the above, but full-time office is a wash for my personal productivity. It's a lot easier now that my kids are older.

Amazon Interview Questions

Two Sum

Find two numbers in a given array that add up to a specific target value, and return their indices. Essentially, you need to efficiently locate the pair that satisfies the sum requirement.

Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock

You're given daily stock prices. Find the maximum profit you can make by buying and selling the stock once. You must buy before you sell.

ArraysDynamic Programming

Reorganize String

Rearrange the characters in a given string such that no two adjacent characters are the same. If such an arrangement is possible, return it; otherwise, return an empty string.

StringsGreedy AlgorithmsArraysStacksDynamic Programming

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