How Amazon Interviews in 2026: Process, Questions & What They Score

• Two Sum (find pairs in an array summing to a target)Tests hash-map lookup for pair sums; the one-pass O(n) solution is the expected baseline.
• Number of Islands (find/count connected land regions in a 2D grid via DFS/BFS)Tests grid DFS/BFS flood fill with visited marking; count each land component exactly once.
• Design and implement an LRU CacheTests hash map plus doubly linked list to achieve O(1) get and put with correct eviction order.
• Reorder Data in Log Files (parsing/sorting mixed log entries)Tests custom sort comparators and stable sorting over mixed letter and digit log entries.
• Word Break (determine if a string can be segmented into dictionary words)Tests dynamic programming over prefixes with a dictionary set; memoization avoids exponential recursion.
• Task Scheduler (schedule tasks with cooldown constraints)Tests greedy reasoning around the most frequent task; the idle-slot formula is the key insight.
• Sliding Window MaximumTests the monotonic deque technique for O(n) window maximums instead of rescanning each window.
• Valid Anagram / string manipulation problemsTests character-frequency counting with a hash map or fixed-size count array and clean string handling.
• Identify the Largest Outlier in an ArrayTests careful problem clarification plus a linear scan; pin down the outlier definition before coding.
• Longest Substring Without Repeating CharactersTests a sliding window with a last-seen index map; jump the left bound past the previous occurrence instead of restarting the window.
• Merge Intervals (combine overlapping ranges)Tests sorting by start time then merging in one pass; compare each interval against the last one already merged, not the previous input interval.
• Search in Rotated Sorted ArrayTests binary search on a pivoted array; each step decides which half is sorted before choosing where to continue.
• Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary TreeTests post-order recursion that returns the first node where the two targets are found in different subtrees.
• Critical Connections in a Network (find the bridges in a graph)Tests Tarjan's bridge finding with discovery and low-link times; a reported OA problem that is harder than the usual medium.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.

• Design TinyURL (a URL shortening service)System design staple: short-code generation, collision handling, and read-heavy redirect scaling.
• Design a parking lot systemObject-oriented design: class modeling for spots and vehicles, allocation strategy, and extensibility.
• Design an elevator system for a multi-story buildingObject-oriented design: request scheduling across cars, per-car state machines, and minimizing wait time.
• Design a rate limiterSystem design: token bucket or sliding window, per-client keys, and distributed counter consistency.
• Design a file upload/download serviceSystem design: chunked uploads, blob storage, metadata service, resumability, and CDN-backed downloads.
• Design a search/autocomplete featureSystem design: trie or prefix index, suggestion ranking, and low-latency caching.
• Design a notification or messaging serviceSystem design: fan-out strategy, queueing, retries with idempotency, and delivery guarantees across channels.
• Design a distributed message queue (e.g. SQS)Tests durability, at-least-once delivery, visibility timeouts, and the ordering versus throughput trade-off.
• Design an e-commerce order and inventory systemTests consistency on inventory decrement, idempotent checkout, and splitting a read-heavy catalog from write-heavy orders.
• Design a video streaming service (e.g. Prime Video)Tests CDN and adaptive bitrate delivery, transcoding pipelines, and how playback state survives a client reconnect.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.

• Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a customer
• Tell me about a time you took on something outside your job description and drove it to completion
• Tell me about a time you simplified a complex process or invented a new solution
• Tell me about a time you had to make an urgent decision without complete data
• Tell me about a time you disagreed with a decision but committed to it anyway
• Tell me about a time you failed and what you learned from it
• Tell me about a time you had to leave a task unfinished
• Tell me about a time you influenced a change by only asking questions
• Tell me about a time you were wrong. How did you realize it, and what did you change?
• How do you prioritize when several customers want conflicting things and you cannot satisfy all of them?
• Tell me about a time you mentored someone and had to adapt your approach to how they learn
• What do you look for when deciding whether someone would raise the bar on your team?
• Tell me about a time you were dissatisfied with the quality of something about to ship and what you did about it
• Tell me about a time you pushed for a far more ambitious version of a project than the one you were asked for
• Tell me about a time you delivered a real result with very little budget, headcount, or time
• Tell me about a time you had to give someone news they did not want to hear
• How do you go about earning trust with a team you have just joined?
• Tell me about a time you kept digging past the obvious explanation and found the real root cause
• Tell me about a time your team was ready to give up on a goal and you got it delivered anyway
• Tell me about a time you improved things for the people on your team, not just the output
• Tell me about an ethical dilemma you faced at work and how you handled it
• Tell me about a time you left a system, process, or team in better shape than you found it

• Given a workplace scenario involving a conflicting deadline, rank the most and least effective responses
• Given a scenario about a dissatisfied customer, choose the response that best reflects Customer Obsession
• Workstyle survey: choose which of several statements best reflects how you personally approach ambiguous or resource-constrained problems
• Scenario: a teammate proposes a risky shortcut to hit a deadline; evaluate possible responses

Amazon's process has 8 stages, in order: Resume screen / recruiter outreach, Recruiter screen, Online Assessment (OA), Technical phone screen, Interview loop / virtual 'onsite', Interviewer debrief / hiring committee, Reference checks, Offer and negotiation.

Amazon evaluates candidates against Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles: Customer Obsession, Ownership, Invent and Simplify, Are Right, A Lot, Learn and Be Curious, Hire and Develop the Best, Insist on the Highest Standards, Think Big, Bias for Action, Frugality, Earn Trust, Dive Deep, Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit, Deliver Results, Strive to be Earth's Best Employer, Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility.

Amazon's question bank spans 4 categories: Coding / Data Structures & Algorithms; System / Object-Oriented Design; Behavioral / Leadership Principles; Work-simulation / Situational Judgment (Online Assessment).

This playbook is high confidence, compiled from 23 public sources, and last verified July 7, 2026. It describes one well-documented shape of Amazon's interviews, not a guarantee of what any individual loop will look like.