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Amazon Software Engineer Interview Questions

27 real practice questions for the mid-level Software Engineer role at Amazon (Technology), spanning behavioral, technical, leadership, and problem solving. Design, develop, and maintain software applications. The first 3 questions below include what Amazon interviewers actually listen for, plus likely follow-ups.

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Questions
27
Categories
Behavioral (13), Technical (12), Leadership (1), Problem Solving (1)
Difficulty mix
15 easy · 11 medium · 1 hard
Avg. answer time
~3 min

Behavioral Questions (13)

  1. 1.What is the expected salary for freshers?

    easy~2 min

    What interviewers look for

    • Express flexibility and openness to negotiate based on role responsibilities and growth opportunities
    • Emphasize passion for the role and company mission over purely financial motivations
    • Research market rates and demonstrate awareness of industry compensation standards
    • Show understanding that compensation includes more than base salary (stock, benefits, learning opportunities)

    Likely follow-ups

    • What factors beyond salary are most important to you in a compensation package?
    • How did you research typical compensation ranges for this role?

    Company context

    Amazon asks this to gauge candidate expectations and ensure alignment with their compensation philosophy. Amazon values ownership and long-term thinking, offering significant equity compensation and career growth opportunities that extend beyond immediate salary expectations.

  2. 2.Tell me about yourself

    easy~2 min

    What interviewers look for

    • Provide a structured narrative connecting education, experience, and career goals
    • Highlight specific technical achievements and learning experiences relevant to software engineering
    • Demonstrate customer obsession by mentioning projects that solved real problems for users
    • Show alignment with Amazon's culture of ownership and continuous learning

    Likely follow-ups

    • What draws you specifically to software engineering at Amazon?
    • Can you elaborate on the most challenging project you mentioned?

    Company context

    Amazon uses this classic opener to assess how candidates articulate their value proposition and whether their experiences align with Amazon's leadership principles, particularly Customer Obsession and Learn and Be Curious. The response sets the tone for deeper behavioral discussions.

  3. 3.Tell me about your job experience.

    easy~2 min

    What interviewers look for

    • Clearly articulates career progression with specific examples of increasing responsibility and impact
    • Demonstrates ownership mentality by explaining how they took initiative and drove results independently
    • Shows customer obsession by connecting technical work to customer value and business outcomes
    • Highlights collaboration and mentoring experiences that show ability to hire and develop others
    • Mentions specific technologies and scale that align with Amazon's tech stack and operational complexity

    Likely follow-ups

    • Can you give me a specific example of a project where you had to take ownership of an ambiguous problem?
    • How did you measure the success of your work in terms of customer impact?

    Company context

    Amazon uses this open-ended question to assess how candidates frame their experience through Amazon's Leadership Principles lens. The company values engineers who can connect their technical work to customer outcomes and demonstrate ownership throughout their career progression.

  4. 4.What questions do you have based on your resume?

    easy~2 min

  5. 5.What are the other business ventures of Amazon besides e-commerce?

    easy~2 min

  6. 6.What are the strategies employed by the company?

    easy~2 min

  7. 7.Why is good communication important?

    easy~2 min

  8. 8.What are the core principles that guide Amazon's business practices?

    easy~2 min

  9. 9.Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without having all the information you needed. How did you handle it?

    medium~3 min

  10. 10.Describe a time when you went deep into a technical problem to find the root cause. What did you discover?

    medium~3 min

  11. 11.Tell me about a time you used data to solve a problem.

    medium~3 min

  12. 12.How do you demonstrate a strong work ethic?

    medium~3 min

  13. 13.How can one achieve good results?

    medium~3 min

Technical Questions (12)

  1. 14.Given an array of integers, find two numbers that add up to a target sum. What's the most efficient approach?

    easy~2 min

  2. 15.Describe the process to restart a computer.

    easy~2 min

  3. 16.Do you have basic knowledge of computers?

    easy~2 min

  4. 17.Do you have experience with basic computer knowledge?

    easy~2 min

  5. 18.Write a SQL query to categorize salaries based on the average salary.

    easy~2 min

  6. 19.What are the basic concepts of Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

    easy~2 min

  7. 20.What is the Agile methodology?

    easy~2 min

  8. 21.Design a URL shortening service like bit.ly. How would you handle billions of URLs?

    medium~4 min

  9. 22.Explain how you would optimize a slow database query that's affecting production performance.

    medium~3 min

  10. 23.What are the data skew issues you have encountered, and how did you resolve them?

    medium~3 min

  11. 24.How do you check for network failover?

    medium~3 min

  12. 25.How would you design an API rate limiter to protect a service from being overwhelmed?

    hard~4 min

Leadership Questions (1)

  1. 26.What strategies can be implemented to enhance company profitability?

    medium~3 min

Problem Solving Questions (1)

  1. 27.What suggestions do you have for improving the Amazon e-commerce website?

    medium~3 min

More Amazon interview questions