Amazon Software Engineer Interview Guide 2026 — five rounds, 16 LPs, the Bar Raiser.
Amazon's interview is the FAANG loop where behavioral matters most. Two to three behavioral rounds plus the Bar Raiser means roughly half the on-site signal isn't coding — it's whether you can tell a STAR-format story that hits the right Leadership Principle.
01 The five rounds
Standard recruiter call. Amazon-specific: they'll ask which org (AWS, Retail, Alexa, Ads, Prime Video, Robotics, Kuiper), which location, your level (SDE1/SDE2/SDE3/Principal). Amazon is the biggest FAANG and the org you join matters more here than at Google or Meta.
Two coding problems on Amazon's online assessment platform plus a work-style survey. The coding problems are usually LeetCode medium with one easy warm-up. The work-style survey is a personality test mapped to Leadership Principles — the questions look soft but the scoring is real. Don't max out every "I prefer to work alone" or "I take risks frequently" answer.
Prepare: Amazon-tagged LeetCode top 50. The work-style survey rewards being slightly extroverted, action-biased, customer-focused, and humble. Don't fake it; align the truthful version of your answers.
One coding problem and one Leadership Principles question. The coding is LeetCode medium. The LP question is the warm-up for the on-site behavioral barrage — practice it as a real STAR story, not a casual answer.
Two coding rounds, system design (SDE2+), two to three behavioral rounds, Bar Raiser. Each round is 45 minutes. The behavioral-heavy nature is what makes Amazon different.
Coding: arrays, strings, hash maps, trees, graphs (BFS/DFS), recursion, simple DP. Design problems like LRU cache, parking lot, rate limiter appear in senior loops.
System design (SDE2+): AWS-flavored prompts — design S3, design Lambda, design a distributed cache, design SQS. Know AWS primitives and how they compose.
Behavioral: each round picks two to three Leadership Principles. The interviewer asks "tell me about a time when [LP-shaped situation]" and probes for two to three minutes of follow-up. The candidate who survives is the one who has a story ready for every LP.
One of the on-site rounds is the Bar Raiser. The interviewer is a trained Amazon employee from a different team, brought in to ensure hiring quality across the company. They have veto power — if the Bar Raiser says no, the hire doesn't go through, regardless of what the other interviewers say. The Bar Raiser focuses on Leadership Principles and overall hire-or-no-hire judgment more than the specific technical signal.
You won't know which round is the Bar Raiser until after. Treat every behavioral round as if it might be. The interviewer is probably the one who pushes deepest on a single LP and won't let you escape with a surface story.
02 The 16 Leadership Principles
Every behavioral question at Amazon maps to one or more LPs. Memorize the list and prepare one strong STAR story per principle:
- Customer Obsession — start with the customer and work backward.
- Ownership — think long-term, act for the whole company.
- Invent and Simplify — innovate, accept ambiguity, simplify.
- Are Right, A Lot — strong judgment, seek diverse perspectives.
- Learn and Be Curious — improve, explore new possibilities.
- Hire and Develop the Best — raise the bar, mentor.
- Insist on the Highest Standards — relentless improvement.
- Think Big — bold direction, inspire results.
- Bias for Action — speed matters, reversible decisions don't need study.
- Frugality — accomplish more with less.
- Earn Trust — listen, speak candidly, treat others respectfully.
- Dive Deep — operate at all levels, no detail too small.
- Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit — challenge respectfully, commit fully.
- Deliver Results — focus on key inputs, deliver with quality.
- Strive to be Earth's Best Employer — safer, fairer, more productive.
- Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility — humble, thoughtful about second-order effects.
Sixteen stories. Each one tightly scoped, two to three minutes, with a clear Situation/Task/Action/Result. Stories can map to multiple LPs — a single ambiguous-project story can cover Ownership, Bias for Action, and Deliver Results — but you need enough breadth that the interviewer can't accidentally probe a gap.
03 What 2026 changed at Amazon
Amazon added the 16th LP ("Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility") in 2021 and refined the rest, but the framework is stable. The 2026 change is that interviewers probe LP stories deeper and faster. A general "tell me about leadership" question is rare; specific "tell me about a time when you disagreed with a more senior engineer about a technical decision" probes are common. Surface stories die fast.
The other shift: Amazon's coding bar relaxed slightly in 2024-2025 as the company focused hiring on AWS AI and removed some friction. The behavioral bar didn't relax — if anything it tightened.
04 4-week prep timeline
Week 1: LPs and stories
- Day 1-3: Write one STAR story per LP. Sixteen total.
- Day 4-5: Trim each story to two to three minutes. Read out loud.
- Day 6: Mock behavioral with someone who pushes follow-ups.
- Day 7: Coding warm-up — Amazon-tagged LeetCode top 10.
Week 2: Coding
- Day 1-3: Arrays, strings, hash maps, trees. 15-20 Amazon-tagged problems.
- Day 4-5: Graphs, recursion, simple DP. 10-12 problems.
- Day 6-7: Design problems (LRU, rate limiter, parking lot).
Week 3: System design + LP depth
- Day 1-3: System design — AWS-flavored prompts (design S3, Lambda, SQS).
- Day 4-5: Re-run LP stories with deeper details.
- Day 6: Mock loop — coding + behavioral + design.
- Day 7: OA practice if you haven't done it yet.
Week 4: Sharpen
- Day 1-3: LP stories trim and rehearse out loud.
- Day 4-5: Re-solve Amazon-tagged top 30.
- Day 6-7: Light review, sleep, walk.
05 FAQ
How many rounds is Amazon SWE in 2026?
Five: recruiter, OA, phone screen, on-site loop (4-5 sub-rounds including Bar Raiser), hiring decision.
What are Amazon Leadership Principles?
Sixteen principles like Customer Obsession, Ownership, Dive Deep, Bias for Action. Every behavioral question maps to one or more.
What is the Bar Raiser?
A trained Amazon interviewer from a different team with veto power. They focus on Leadership Principles and overall hire-or-no-hire judgment.
How many STAR stories do I need for Amazon?
Sixteen — one per Leadership Principle. Stories can map to multiple LPs but you need breadth.
How long is the Amazon process?
Four to eight weeks, faster than Google because no formal hiring committee.