CrackingWalnuts
Checked 3 August 2026. Amazon publishes the 16 Leadership Principles and the Bar Raiser role. Round counts and timeline are commonly reported by candidates, not published. Source: amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-principles.
| Round | Duration | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Phone Screen (Coding plus LPs) | 60 min | One medium LeetCode problem plus 2 LP questions. |
| Coding Round | 60 min | Medium problem with LP questions woven in. |
| System Design | 60 min | One end-to-end service design with customer framing. |
| Object-Oriented Design (LLD) | 60 min | Class design for a real product feature. |
| Bar Raiser | 60 min | Deep LP probing plus one technical question. Veto power. |
| Hiring Manager | 60 min | LPs, culture fit, team fit. |
Targeted guidance per round in this loop. Each section links to the matching track on the site. There is no shortcut list, the bar moves loop to loop, so build the pattern recognition and the stories from real practice.
Work the pattern templates until the recognition is instant. Trace one mock problem per pattern. Practice stating time and space complexity out loud before you write code.
Amazon SDE II (Software Engineer, Mid) has one design round: System Design (60 min): One end-to-end service design with customer framing.. Bar is owning a non-trivial design end to end, with capacity numbers, a clear data model, and one deep dive you can defend under push-back. Pick problems from the track at the scale this loop tests and rehearse the structure: requirements, numbers, high-level design, data model, API, deep dive on one part, trade-offs.
Practice class design from a vague product brief. Get the class boundaries right before the methods. Talk about edge cases before they ask. Use the LLD problems as drills.
Senior bar. The rubric shifts from execution to ownership at scope, judgment, cross-functional impact, and being calibrated on what is hard. Every story needs alternatives considered and what you would do differently. Map each story to one or two of the 16 Leadership Principles.