What are the three rounds in an Amazon interview?

The Amazon interview process typically involves multiple rounds, but the three core rounds are generally focused on coding, system design (for senior roles), and behavioral questions based on Amazon’s Leadership Principles. Here's a breakdown of these three rounds:

1. Technical (Coding) Round

This round focuses on coding skills and problem-solving. You’ll be asked to solve algorithmic problems involving data structures and algorithms. The goal is to assess your ability to write clean, efficient, and optimized code. This round may happen during a phone screen or as part of the onsite/virtual interviews.

What to Expect:

• Common coding patterns like sliding window, two pointers, dynamic programming, and graph traversal.
• You’ll be asked to explain your approach, write code, and discuss optimizations.

How to Prepare: To get ready for this, check out Grokking the Coding Interview: Patterns for Coding Questions for focused practice on the most common coding patterns Amazon tests.

2. System Design Round (For Senior or Experienced Roles)

For mid-level to senior technical roles, you will have a system design interview where you're asked to design a scalable system or architecture. This round evaluates your ability to create robust, scalable, and maintainable systems.

What to Expect:

• Designing distributed systems, such as an e-commerce platform, URL shortener, or social media feed.
• You’ll need to discuss scalability, performance, database design, and fault tolerance.

How to Prepare: For this round, Grokking the System Design Interview is an excellent resource for learning system design concepts commonly tested in Amazon interviews.

3. Behavioral (Leadership Principles) Round

Amazon places a strong emphasis on its 14 Leadership Principles, so you’ll face behavioral interview questions that focus on your past experiences and how they align with these principles. This round is designed to assess your cultural fit and how well you handle real-world challenges.

What to Expect:

• Questions like: "Tell me about a time when you showed ownership," or "Describe a situation where you had to make a difficult decision with limited information."
• Interviewers want to see how your experiences reflect principles like Customer Obsession, Ownership, and Bias for Action.

How to Prepare: Use the Grokking Modern Behavioral Interview course to practice behavioral questions and learn how to frame your answers using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Summary of the Three Core Rounds:

1. Technical (Coding) Round: Focus on coding challenges involving data structures and algorithms.
2. System Design Round (for senior roles): Design scalable systems or architectures.
3. Behavioral Round: Evaluate your alignment with Amazon’s Leadership Principles through behavioral questions.

By preparing for these key rounds, you can significantly improve your chances of success in the Amazon interview process.