Amazon Software Development Engineer interview questions
based on 3.4K ratings - Updated Jun 28, 2026
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Candidates applying for Software Development Engineer roles take an average of 21 days to get hired, when considering 2 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Amazon overall takes an average of 42 days.
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The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2010
Interview
After reviewing my resume they arranged a phone interview. I was contacted precisely on time and spoke to a member of the team I would be working for. The interviewer immediately wanted me to code for him, and provided a link to Google docs to do so. After programming we chatted about the company and I was offered a chance to ask questions. Interview ended positively but I later received a rejection letter.
Interview questions [4]
Question 1
Given two lists, A and B, of sizes n and k, respectively, describe an algorithm to determine the intersection, C, of the two lists. What is the complexity of your algorithm? (The obvious solution is O(n*k)). Can you describe a solution that is faster? (An optimized solution can do it in O(n+k)).
An integer is represented in binary as a sequence of 0's and 1's. Write a function that returns the number of 1's in the binary representation of a given integer.
Suppose you have a system that keeps track of thousands of users' contact information, including email address. This information is stored in plain text, on disk in a hierarchical directory structure (on a Unix operating system) organized by year, month, and day it was entered in the system. Something bad happens and the system crashes. We want to get the email address of all these users to notify them. How would you parse these directories and files to generate a simple list of email addresses?
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2010
Interview
I sent in my resume online, then I talked with a friend of mine who worked there. He helped as he was able to do something in the resume database to make sure I was called.
I was also called separately by a recruiter who found my information on linked-in. This put me in the loop for a couple open positions.
It seems the goal of Amazon is to process as many candidates as possible but it's not a perfect system. I was originally targeted for a group that I was not as interested in and wasn't as good a fit for. I told them that I was interested in another team and they were good about putting me on both loops. I think this didn't matter initially, as the interviews are not specific at first.