Amazon Software Engineer System Design Questions
261+ questions from real Amazon Software Engineer System Design rounds, reported by candidates who interviewed there.
What does the Amazon System Design round test?
The Amazon system design round assesses a candidate's ability to architect scalable systems. Software Engineer candidates are typically asked to design a large-scale service or platform from scratch, covering database choices, API design, scaling strategy, and failure modes.
Top Topics in This Round
Amazon Software Engineer System Design Questions
Amazon System Design
Hi, Which DB would you choose for tables like Users, Orders, Cart, Products, PaymentDetails in shopping app like Amazon? Also, which tables would you shard and why?
Amazon | SDE2 | Seattle
i had an onsite which had 5 interviews 1. 3 LPs 2. 2 LPs and code design. Nothing like any standard questions. 3. 2LPs and Leetcode hard 4. 2LP and array question 5. 2 Lps...
Amazon System Design
System design to build amazon promotion widget on top of search list of products for customers
Amazon System Design
Design Alexa
Amazon | SDE2 | Seattle [Reject]
Amazon onsite SDE2 experience: 1st- full behavioral 1 hour 2nd- 20 mins behavioral & 40 mins system design (image rendering) 3rd- 20 mins behavioral & 40 mins Leetcode (number of days in between...
ServiceNow | Software Engineer (IC2) | Hyderabad | Offer
Round-1: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/find-a-triplet-that-sum-to-a-given-value/ https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/find-a-triplet-in-an-array-whose-sum-is-closest-to-a-given-number/ https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/minimum-number-platforms-required-railwaybus-station/ Round-2: https://leetcode.com/problems/group-anagrams/ https://leetcode.com/problems/lowest-common-ancestor-of-a-binary-tree/ https://www.interviewbit.com/problems/vertical-sum-of-a-binary-tree/#:~:text=A%20vertical%20sum%20denotes%20an,rightmost%20vertical%20is%20the%20last.&text=The%20first%20argument%20is%20the%20root%20of%20a%20binary%20tree%20A.&text=Return%20an%20array%20denoting%20the%20vertical%20sum%20of%20the%20binary%20tree. Was asked to design the db schema and api contracts for a system which I can\'t recollect. Round-3: Design a meeting scheduler where a user can create a meeting, add participants and...
[NDA] Amazon | SDE2 | Seattle | May 2020 [Reject]
I would like to share my interview experience with Amazon for SDE-2 role. OA: 2 coding questions : 90 minutes \t\t1- Reorder data in log files \t\t2-Top k frequent words \t\t Got confirmation the next...
What is expected out of System Design?
I’ve never done any system design type interviews before, but this recent cycle of interviews I’ve been doing has had a bunch of system design interviews. I’ve been watching some videos on YT to get a
Round1: Design a validate() function for every chess piece move. It\'s a design question, and the interviewer is interested in how I declared classes and virtual functions to call validate()...
Amazon | Onsite | SDE1
Hi there! I was intervied with Amazon (Aug 11 2022) for SDE 1 role There were 4 interviews (3 technical one behavior) 1. LRUCache 2. Parking System 3. TikTak toe For the tik tak toe...
Amazon | Onsite | Round 3 | Design Property listing Site | Approach Needed
I was asked below question: Interviewer wanted to write me all the classes, apis, database tables and relationship. Please suggest how would you do it? /*** Property listing Site Listing the Property by the Seller...
Amazon System Design Interview
I had an interview with Amazon for SDE2 position and I was being asked to build a CDN service from scratch. When I prep for a system design interview question...
Amazon || SDE-2 || November 2021
I have appeared for the Amazon interviews for SDE-2 role recently, sharing my rounds, hoping it might help others. Round-1 : Coding Round Lp question : complex project DSA question :...
Amazon System Design Interview
Amazon is entering a new business, Municipal Traffic Control. Please design a system for managing the traffic grid for a mid-sized US city. Assume custom internet-enabled devices will exist at...
Amazon | SDE2 | Seattle | Feb 2020 [Offer]
Status: 3 YOE Location: Seattle, WA Date: Feb 2020 Resources: Leetcode premium - just buy it, it makes prep quicker and if you get the job you\'re looking for it\'s a worthwhile investment. groking the...
Amazon | SDE Summer Intern 2020 | Seattle | Nov 2019 [Offer]
Status: Master of Computer Science Position: SDE Intern at Amazon Location: Seattle, WA Date: Nov 6, 2019 OA - Online Assesment OA 1 - Debugging Round [20 Minutes] 7 debugging questions in C/C++/Java on this round Easy,...
Amazon SDE 2 Interview Experience DSA LLD and HLD
Round 1 - DSA Problem similar to LFU Cache (LC Hard) (User logs in and we have to return the last user with lowest frequency of login) LP questions **Passed** Round 2 - LLD Design a Registration syste
Amazon SDE-2 Interview Experience: DSA, LLD, and System Design
All rounds had 2-3 questions based on Amazon leadership principles. Round 1 - 2 DSA questions: 1 -> Search in rotated sorted array 2 -> Variation of next greater element Round 2 - LLD: Design an order
Amazon SDE-2 LLD Round Rule Engine Design
**Problem statement given** Design a simple rule engine that: 1.Takes a list of credit card expenses 2.Applies a set of rules 3.Flags the expenses that needs review 4.More rules can be added in future
Amazon SDE II Interview: DSA, LLD and Negative Recruitment Experience
I recived OA link in late feb, then onsite rounds were scheduled for first 2 rounds. round 1 : DSA 1. alian dictonary 2. sliding window maximum 3. LP feedback : positve LLD : design log4j + lp feedbac
What to Expect in the Amazon System Design Round
The Amazon Software Engineer System Design round has a specific calibration purpose distinct from other rounds in the loop. Across 261+ verified reports on LeakCode for this exact round type, the consistent expectations: clear scoping of the problem before diving into a solution, explicit reasoning about complexity, structured handling of edge cases, and the ability to discuss trade-offs between two reasonable approaches.
Reports tagged with the System Design round at Amazon show recurring patterns in difficulty and topic distribution. The System Design round is typically 45-60 minutes; the interviewer is calibrated against a specific rubric. The discriminator between candidates who advance and candidates who do not is rarely the final correctness of the answer. It is the path: did you clarify, did you verbalize your approach, did you handle edge cases, and did you communicate throughout.
How To Prepare for This Specific Round
Filter the questions below to the most recent reports (past 6-12 months). Questions tagged for this exact round type from this exact company at this exact role level are the highest-signal data available. Older reports may reference questions that have since rotated out of the company's pool.
Practice 4-6 representative problems from this set under timed conditions. The goal is not memorization (companies rotate questions); the goal is to internalize the patterns the interviewer typically reaches for and the depth of follow-up to expect. Reports on LeakCode also tag the typical follow-up depth at this round type, which is the discriminating signal between hire and no-hire calibration.
System Design Round Timing and Format
The System Design round at Amazon typically runs 45-60 minutes. Use the first 2-3 minutes to clarify requirements; you should never start coding or designing without verifying the input/output format, constraints, and edge cases out loud. Use the next 5-7 minutes to verbalize your approach before writing any code. The middle 20-30 minutes are implementation. Reserve the final 10 minutes for testing with concrete examples and discussing optimization or trade-offs.
Time budget discipline is one of the most reliable senior-vs-junior discriminators in this round. Strong candidates verbalize where they are in their budget out loud ("I've used about 20 minutes, I have 15 minutes left for testing and one optimization"). This signals engineering maturity to the interviewer and creates positive feedback they can capture in writing.
Common Failure Modes in This Round
Reports tagged "no hire" at Amazon Software Engineer System Design commonly cite: coding silently without verbalizing approach, jumping to implementation before clarifying requirements, missing edge cases (empty input, single element, very large input), producing working code that the candidate cannot refactor when asked, and failing to test their solution with concrete examples before declaring done.
The single most predictive failure mode in 2025-2026 reports: not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers at all FAANG companies are explicitly trained to weight this dimension. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's notes.
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