Amazon’s online assessment for software development engineer (SDE) roles is a timed test you complete on your own, after you apply and before you meet anyone from Amazon. Amazon describes it as evaluating coding skills, technical problem solving and its Leadership Principles, and it is built from separate parts rather than being one long test: a coding assessment, a work styles questionnaire, a work simulation for some roles, and a short feedback survey at the end.
The exact mix, the length of each part and the difficulty all vary by role and by level, and Amazon revises them. Treat the detail published on amazon.jobs for the specific vacancy as the authority. What stays constant is what is being measured: whether you can write correct, efficient code under time pressure, and whether the way you work matches how Amazon expects its engineers to work.
Where the online assessment sits in Amazon’s hiring process
Amazon is explicit that its application and interview process differs from role to role, but for Amazon SDE positions the sequence usually runs:
- Online application through the amazon.jobs portal
- Online assessment
- Phone screening
- Interview loop
The online assessment is the first real filter. Most candidates who do not progress are screened out here rather than at interview, which is why it is worth preparing for specifically instead of treating it as a formality on the way to the interviews.
Online application
Applications for SDE roles are made through amazon.jobs. You create an account, apply to a specific vacancy, and give Amazon the contact details it will use to send your assessment invitation. Read the requirements on the vacancy before applying, because the level you apply to determines which version of the assessment you are sent.
Phone screening
Some candidates have a short conversation with a recruiter covering their background, their motivation for the role and, depending on the recruiter, some light technical ground. It is also your opportunity to ask which assessment you will be sent and how long you will have to complete it.
Interview loop
Candidates who clear the assessment go on to an interview loop, which is a series of interviews rather than a single meeting. Expect a mix of coding, software design and behavioral questions, and expect the behavioral questions to be tied closely to Amazon’s Leadership Principles.
The coding assessment
The coding assessment is the part most candidates mean when they talk about the Amazon coding test. You are given problems to solve by writing working code. Each problem is stated as a scenario with its inputs, outputs and constraints, and you submit a solution that compiles and runs against test cases.
Two things are judged, not one. The first is whether your solution is correct. The second is whether it is efficient: a solution that produces the right answer but does far more work than it needs to will not score as well as a tighter one. Amazon’s published guidance for software development candidates puts it plainly, saying interviewers are looking for your ability to apply what you know to solve problems efficiently and effectively rather than your ability to memorize details.
Amazon’s own advice for this part is worth following closely:
- Review and practice the coding language you intend to use before test day, rather than deciding on the day
- Practice writing code outside an integrated development environment, because the assessment will not autocomplete for you or fix your syntax
- Take the unscored practice test Amazon provides, so the interface is familiar before it counts
- Manage your time deliberately, skipping a problem you are stuck on and returning to it rather than burning the clock
Amazon also states that you may use publicly accessible online resources during the coding assessment, such as language documentation or a standard library reference. That is not an invitation to look up whole solutions, and it does not change what is being measured.
The work styles assessment
The work styles part is a questionnaire rather than a test with right answers in the usual sense. It presents workplace statements and asks which better describes you, and it is aligned to Amazon’s Leadership Principles.
There are sixteen of those principles, including Customer Obsession, Ownership, Invent and Simplify, Learn and Be Curious, Insist on the Highest Standards, Bias for Action, Earn Trust, Dive Deep, Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit, and Deliver Results. Amazon says it uses them every day, from discussing ideas for new projects to deciding the best way to solve a problem, so they are not a decorative statement of values.
Read them before you sit the assessment. The aim is not to impersonate the answer you think Amazon wants, which tends to produce inconsistent responses across a long questionnaire, but to understand the terms in which Amazon describes good work so you can answer thoughtfully and consistently.
The work simulation
For some SDE roles the assessment includes a work simulation: realistic scenarios drawn from the job, where you are shown a situation and asked how you would respond. The scenarios cover the ordinary difficulties of engineering work, including competing deadlines, prioritizing between tasks, working with a team and handling disagreement.
In structure this is a situational judgement exercise, and it rewards the same approach: read the whole scenario before answering, choose the response that addresses the underlying problem rather than the one that avoids friction, and stay consistent from scenario to scenario.
What Amazon says you should revise
For software development interviews, Amazon publishes the topics it expects candidates to be comfortable with:
- Your chosen programming language
- Data structures
- Algorithms
- Coding
- Object-oriented design
- Databases
- Distributed computing
- Operating systems
- Internet topics
- General machine learning and artificial intelligence
Amazon’s recommendation is to prioritize reviewing computer science fundamentals rather than trying to cover everything, because what is being tested is application rather than recall. At more senior SDE levels the assessment and the interview loop give more weight to system design, so if you are applying with experience, practice explaining a design and its trade-offs out loud.
How to prepare for the Amazon coding assessment
Practice under the clock. The assessment is timed, and time pressure changes how people code. Working through problems with a timer running, in a room without interruptions, is the closest you can get to the real conditions.
Practice reading a problem properly. A large share of failed assessments are failures of comprehension rather than of coding: the constraint buried in the third line of the question, the edge case sitting in the sample input. Read the whole problem before you write anything.
Test your own code. Get into the habit of checking a solution against an empty input, a single-element input and the largest case the constraints allow before you submit it. Robust, well tested code is the standard Amazon sets for the job itself.
Know the Leadership Principles. The work styles questionnaire and the behavioral parts of the interview loop both draw on them, so the reading you do once serves two stages.
Give yourself proper conditions. The assessment is unproctored and you schedule it yourself, so book it for a time when you are rested and will not be interrupted, rather than for the first slot available.
Practice the skills the assessment measures
The coding problems need code practice, but the assessment also measures reasoning and sustained accuracy under time pressure, and those transfer directly from aptitude practice:
- Logical reasoning tests, for the deduction and pattern recognition that sit underneath algorithm problems
- Error checking tests, for the sustained accuracy that finding a bug in unfamiliar code demands
- Situational judgement tests, for the work simulation and the behavioral interview questions
You can also review the wider Amazon assessment process as it applies across other Amazon roles.
