December Code

Amazon · Amazon SDE intern and new-grad hiring · pattern last verified 29 September 2026

Amazon SDE assessment and interviews: the pattern from Amazon's own pages

Amazon is the one company on this site that describes its own assessment in public. Its university hiring pages say the SDE online assessment for interns runs about 90 minutes, a coding part of about 70 minutes, a work-styles part of about 15 and a short survey, and that full-time candidates also get a work simulation of about 60 minutes. A companion page lists the software-development topics interviews draw on: programming languages, data structures, algorithms, coding, object-oriented design, databases, distributed computing, operating systems, internet topics, and general machine learning. Prep sites fill in the shape of the coding problems, and their reports are marked as such.

That makes this page different from the service-company pages here. Amazon does not test aptitude, and the assessment's non-coding parts are about judgement and Amazon's Leadership Principles, which no question bank prepares for. What December Code covers is the data structures behind the coding test and the computer-science fundamentals behind the interviews, and the practice set is built around Amazon's own topic list.

December Code is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Amazon. This page summarises how Amazon SDE intern and new-grad hiring is publicly described, from the sources listed at the end, checked on 29 September 2026. Where a detail comes from prep sites or candidate reports rather than Amazon itself, the page says so. The notification or test invitation for the drive you are sitting is the source of truth, and where it differs from this page, it is right.

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How the process runs

A round is marked official when Amazon describes it on its own pages, and commonly reported when the description comes from prep sites and candidate reports.

  1. 1

    Application through Amazon's university jobsofficial

    Amazon's student-programs page lists software development engineering among its university programs, for internships and full-time roles, with roles found through its jobs site. Reports put the assessment invitation at one to two weeks after applying.

  2. 2

    Online assessmentofficial

    Amazon's SDE assessment page gives the components and durations: for internships, about 70 minutes of coding, about 15 of work styles and a five-minute survey; for full-time roles, the same plus a work simulation of about 60 minutes, up to about two hours in all. It says the assessment measures coding skills, technical problem solving and the Leadership Principles, and that no Amazon-specific knowledge is needed.

  3. 3

    Interviewsofficial

    Amazon's topics page says most technical interviews involve coding and system-design whiteboarding, and that interviewers do not expect memorised detail across every topic. Reports describe one or more rounds, each pairing a coding problem with behavioural questions built on the Leadership Principles, and a system-design discussion for full-time candidates.

  4. 4

    Decisioncommonly reported

    Reports say there is no fixed timeline for a decision after interviews and that invitations, when they come, arrive within one to three weeks of the assessment.

What the test asks, and what prepares you for it

2 of 4 sections map to a December Code subject. The rest are named below, not glossed over.

SectionWhat it testsPrepare with
Coding assessmentofficialAbout 70 minutes, per Amazon. Reported as two problems, typically one easy and one medium, on arrays and strings, hash maps and sets, linked lists, trees, graphs, queues and stacks, breadth- and depth-first search, sorting and searching. Amazon allows public online resources but expects your own code.DSAJavaPythonC++
Work simulation (full-time roles)officialAbout 60 minutes, per Amazon: realistic workplace scenarios with competing priorities, answered through email-style modules, reported as five or six of them.not covered here
Work-style assessmentofficialAbout 15 minutes, per Amazon: an untimed-feeling questionnaire on how you prefer to work, scored against the Leadership Principles.not covered here
Interview: coding and system designofficialAmazon's topic list: data structures, algorithms, coding, object-oriented design, databases, operating systems, distributed computing and internet topics, with whiteboard coding and design. Reported problems are classic: cycle detection, longest substring without repeats, balanced trees, URL shortener design.DSAOOPDBMSOperating SystemsComputer Networks

What Amazon says, and what only the reports say

The components, their durations and the topic list come from Amazon and can be taken as given. The number and difficulty of coding problems, two with one easy and one medium, and the families they draw on, come from prep sites and candidates, and one 2025 candidate reported a 75-minute Indian SDE-1 coding part, so timings vary at the margin. Amazon's own advice is plain and worth following: practise the language you plan to use, and practise coding outside an integrated development environment, because the assessment editor and the interview whiteboard give you neither autocomplete nor a compiler's help.

Two Amazon statements matter for how you spend the assessment's time. Public online resources are allowed, but copying and pasting is not, and the code is expected to be yours. And the assessment is proctored by webcam on a laptop or desktop, not a phone.

The coding problems, and the interview's fundamentals

The reported coding families are the standard toolkit: a hash map to replace a nested loop, two pointers or a sliding window on an array or string, a stack for matching, breadth-first search on a grid or graph, sorting followed by a scan. A student who can recognise which of those a problem needs, and write it correctly with the edge cases handled, is prepared for the typical pair. December Code's DSA hub carries each family with the questions interviewers ask, and its diagnostic shows which families you would get wrong.

Amazon's interview topic list goes beyond data structures into object-oriented design, databases, operating systems and internet topics, and reports confirm those come up as questions rather than as coding: the four pillars of object-oriented programming, how a load balancer helps, what a database index does, what a process shares with a thread. OOP, DBMS, operating systems and computer networks each have a hub and a diagnostic here.

What this site cannot do for Amazon

Half of the assessment measures judgement and preference: the work simulation and the work-style part exist to test the Leadership Principles, and the behavioural half of every interview does the same with stories from your own experience. Nothing on this site prepares for that, and a student who spends all their time on data structures and none on preparing honest examples of ownership, disagreement and delivery is under-prepared for Amazon in a way that no diagnostic will show. Amazon's own preparation videos, linked from its topics page, are the right source for that half.

What December Code covers here, and what it does not

The diagnostic and practice cover DSA, OOP, DBMS, Operating Systems, Computer Networks, Java, Python, C++: the subjects behind 2 of the 4 sections above. It does not cover the following, and no page here pretends to:

  • The work simulation and the work-style assessment, and the behavioural half of every interview: all built on Amazon's Leadership Principles, none preparable with a question bank.
  • System design and distributed computing, which Amazon lists for interviews and which December Code has no subject for.
  • The coding editor: two problems executed against test cases under webcam proctoring. December Code prepares the data-structure reasoning in MCQ form and does not run your code.
  • Machine learning and AI topics on Amazon's list.

What could not be confirmed from Amazon

  • The number and difficulty of coding problems in the assessment: two, one easy and one medium, is a prep-site and candidate report, not an Amazon statement.
  • The work simulation's module count and the interview round count.
  • Timelines between application, assessment and interview.

A practice set for Amazon SDE intern and new-grad hiring

Topic pages in the subjects this process tests, each with the questions interviewers ask and one question from the bank exactly as the diagnostic asks it. Nothing is published for this page: every sample was already public on its topic page.

DSA9 pages
  1. Hashing and hash table interview questionsHash maps and sets lead the reported coding families and Amazon's own topic list.
  2. Array and two-pointer interview questionsTwo pointers and sliding windows are the reported shape of the array and string problems.
  3. String interview questionsThe longest substring without repeats is the most reported Amazon string question.
  4. Linked list interview questionsCycle detection and the middle element are reported Amazon interview questions.
  5. Binary tree and BST interview questionsBalanced trees and traversals are on the reported list.
  6. Graph interview questionsBreadth- and depth-first search are named in the coding topics.
  7. Stack and queue interview questionsQueues and stacks are on the coding topic list.
  8. Sorting algorithm interview questionsSorting and searching close Amazon's coding topic list.
  9. Time and space complexity interview questionsEvery interview problem ends with the complexity question.
OOP2 pages
  1. Polymorphism interview questionsObject-oriented design is on Amazon's list; the four pillars are a reported question.
  2. Method overloading vs overriding interview questionsOverloading versus overriding is the reported object-oriented follow-up question.
DBMS1 page
  1. Database indexing interview questionsDatabases are on Amazon's list; indexing is the question that connects to performance.
Operating Systems1 page
  1. Process vs thread interview questionsOperating systems are on the list; processes and threads are the opener.
Computer Networks1 page
  1. DNS and HTTP interview questionsInternet topics are on the list; what happens when a URL is opened is the classic.
Java1 page
  1. Java Collections interview questionsFor candidates who code in Java, the collection behaviour the problems depend on.
Python1 page
  1. Python lists, tuples and sets interview questionsFor candidates who code in Python, the container behaviour the problems rely on.
C++1 page
  1. C++ STL interview questionsFor candidates who code in C++, the containers and algorithms the problems need.

How the diagnostic asks it

One public question per subject, the same one its hub shows. The answer is marked because these are public; in a sitting you choose first, then see why each option is right or wrong.

DSA · Arrays & Two Pointers · easyDSA-032

Which of the following operations on an unsorted array of n integers takes O(n) time in the worst case?

  1. 1Finding the maximum elementcorrect
  2. 2Appending an element at the end when spare capacity already exists
  3. 3Reading the element at index k
  4. 4Reading the array's length

In an unsorted array the maximum could be anywhere, so every element must be examined: O(n). Indexed reads are O(1) because the address is computed from the base and the index; appending into existing spare capacity just writes one slot, O(1); and the length is stored, so reading it is O(1). Only a sorted array would let the maximum be read directly.

More on this topic: Array and two-pointer interview questions

OOP · Inheritance · easyOOP-004

What is 'inheritance' in object-oriented programming?

  1. 1A mechanism where multiple methods share the same name but different parameter lists.
  2. 2A mechanism where a new class acquires the properties and behavior of an existing class.correct
  3. 3A mechanism where a class is prevented from being instantiated directly.
  4. 4A mechanism where an object's internal data is hidden from other classes.

Inheritance lets a derived (child) class reuse and extend fields/methods of a base (parent) class, promoting code reuse and establishing an 'is-a' relationship. Several methods sharing a name with different parameter lists is overloading; hiding an object's internal data from other classes is encapsulation; and preventing a class from being instantiated directly describes an abstract class.

More on this topic: Inheritance interview questions

Measure it

Knowing the pattern tells you what is coming. A diagnostic tells you what you would get wrong.

10 DSA questions across its topics, easy to hard, about fifteen minutes. You get a readiness figure with the arithmetic shown, the topics you missed named, and a practice set sized for today. Free: 1 diagnostic a month and 15 problems a day. No card.

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What the readiness test measures · how the score is computed

Sources, and when they were checked

Pattern last verified 29 September 2026, against the pages below. Patterns change between drives and cycles; when a source changes, this page changes and the date moves with it. A source marked official is Amazon’s own; the others are the established prep sites and candidate reports the “commonly reported” details come from.

By Harshit · updated