Process
- Phone screen with recruiter
- About a week later: phone interview with one engineer
- About two weeks later: phone interviews with engineers, manager, and bar raiser (five interviews total, spread across two days)
Questions
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Heavy on behavioral questions centered around Amazon leadership principles.
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Several situational questions probing knowledge/experience in networking, Linux, system design, and coding.
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What's in
/proc? -
What happens when you navigate to
amazon.com? -
Describe how DNS works.
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Describe how a wireless router works at home.
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Troubleshooting exercise: When a website is unavailable, describe the steps you would take to troubleshoot. There were a few of these.
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Coding exercise: Write a function to read a log file and print basic statistics.
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Coding exercise: Given an org chart, write a function to return the common manager of two employees.
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System design: Design a URL shortening service.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 6 interview experiences for the Amazon Systems Development Engineer role in United States.
Success Rate
Amazon's interview process for their Systems Development Engineer roles in the United States is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Amazon's Systems Development Engineer interview process in United States.
Amazon Work Experiences
- 3.0Learn from top talent but expect stress and deadlinesSystems Development Engineer • Former EmployeeSeattle, WAMay 11, 2026Pros: Amazon employees are very strong technically. If you want to learn from the best, Amazonians are your best bet.Cons: Very stressful environment, with unrealistic deadlines at times.
- 5.0Challenging and interestingSystems Development Engineer • Current EmployeeSeattle, Washington, United StatesJune 17, 2019Pros: Can get a long vacation at my team.Cons: It takes time to go to the next job level.
- 5.0Easy Management SucksSystems Development Engineer • Current EmployeeMalvern, Pennsylvania, United StatesAugust 19, 2025Pros: Easy work. People leave you alone.Cons: All managers preach the leadership principles nonstop.
Amazon Interview Questions
