Amazon LeetCode questions& coding interview guide
Amazon's loop is distinctive because it blends coding with its 16 Leadership Principles. Nearly every round mixes a data-structures problem with behavioral questions, and your answers are scored against those principles. This guide covers the coding topics and patterns Amazon favors — and how to prepare for the behavioral half too.
The Amazon interview format
Typically an online assessment (two timed coding problems plus a work-style survey) followed by a loop of four to six rounds. Each round pairs a coding problem with behavioral questions tied to Leadership Principles like Customer Obsession, Ownership, and Bias for Action. One round is usually led by a 'Bar Raiser'.
Difficulty: LeetCode Easy-to-Medium in the online assessment; Medium in the loop, with occasional Hard. Consistency and clean code matter more than exotic problems.
Topics Amazon emphasizes
These are the data-structure and algorithm areas worth prioritizing before a Amazon coding interview.
- Arrays, strings, and hash maps
- Two pointers and sliding window
- Trees and binary search trees
- Graphs and matrix traversal (BFS/DFS)
- Heaps and priority queues
- Dynamic programming (intro to intermediate)
- Sorting and greedy
- Object-oriented / low-level design
Question patterns to drill
We don't republish Amazon's actual questions — that's not how you get good. Instead, drill these recurring patterns until you can recognize and solve them on your own.
- Grid/matrix traversal problems framed as warehouses, maps, or delivery routes
- Top-K / frequency problems that reward a heap or bucket approach
- Interval and scheduling problems (merge, insert, find conflicts)
- Tree traversal with a twist (level order, path sums, common ancestors)
- OOD prompts like designing a parking lot, a rate limiter, or an ordering system
How to prepare for Amazon specifically
- Prepare Leadership Principle stories in STAR format — every coding round has a behavioral half that's scored.
- Amazon values working code delivered efficiently; get to a correct solution, then optimize.
- Have concrete metrics in your behavioral stories (impact, scale, results).
- Practice explaining trade-offs — the Bar Raiser probes how you decide, not just what you build.
A Amazon prep plan
- 1Weeks 1–2: Core patterns — arrays, hash maps, two pointers, and trees; do the timed online-assessment style problems.
- 2Weeks 3–4: Graphs, heaps, and intro DP, plus start drafting 8–10 Leadership Principle stories.
- 3Weeks 5–6: Object-oriented design practice and mixed mock rounds (coding + behavioral together).
- 4Final week: Full mock loops with a Bar-Raiser-style deep dive on your stories and trade-offs.
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Amazon coding interview FAQs
Yes — almost every round pairs a coding problem with behavioral questions scored against Amazon's Leadership Principles. Preparing STAR-format stories is as important as the algorithms.
They're 16 values (Customer Obsession, Ownership, Invent and Simplify, Bias for Action, and more) that interviewers use to score your behavioral answers. Have specific, metric-backed examples ready for the most common ones.
The OA is usually two LeetCode Easy-to-Medium problems under a time limit, plus a work-style survey. Practicing timed medium problems and reading constraints carefully is the best preparation.
Other company guides
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