Amazon SDE I (Bangalore) Interview Experience: OA to Bar Raiser, Offer in December 2024

AmazonSDE I·Bangalore·Interviewed December 2024Offer

Updated July 17, 2026

A candidate from the 2024 batch, with roughly six months of internship experience and about five months of full-time tenure, interviewed for an SDE I role at Amazon's Bangalore office in December 2024. The process opened with an online assessment in late November and closed with an offer about a month later.

Beyond the OA, the loop consisted of three live interviews: a DSA-only round, a combined coding-and-behavioral round held later the same day, and a Bar Raiser round a few days after. Each technical round paired data-structure and algorithm problems with Amazon's Leadership Principles questions.

How the process went

Application
Applied in November to multiple job postings, both with and without a referral.
Online Assessment
Received the OA invite on November 26, 2024 with a five-day deadline. The OA consisted of two DSA questions (70 minutes) and a separate three-hour Work Style Assessment.
Post-OA screening
On November 29, after clearing the OA, received a follow-up form from Amazon to continue the candidacy.
Interview scheduling
HR called on December 13 to schedule Round 1 for December 16. After passing Round 1 that same day, HR called again within the hour to schedule Round 2 for that afternoon. HR called once more on December 17 to schedule the Bar Raiser for December 19.
Offer
About a week after the Bar Raiser round, the recruiter called to confirm selection, followed by a formal offer.

Round 1: DSA Only

Two data-structure and algorithm problems with a Senior SDE

Design a data structure for a task that looked simple on the surface but was tricky in practice, centered on ArrayList/LinkedList concepts.
A backtracking problem that wasn't posed in an obvious way, though a standard backtracking approach applied once the structure was clear.

Interviewer opened with mutual introductions and left time at the end for candidate questions.

Result: passed.

Round 2: Coding + Leadership Principles

Two DSA problems and two behavioral questions with an SDE II

A contiguous-subarray problem solved with a sliding-window approach.
A trie-based string problem involving unique prefixes.
Two Leadership Principles questions, answered using examples from the candidate's internship and full-time work.

Interviewer stressed explaining the approach, writing the code, walking through a dry run with example input, and stating time complexity for both DSA questions.

Result: passed.

Round 3: Bar Raiser

One DSA question and a majority of Leadership Principles questions with a Software Development Manager

A medium-difficulty problem involving maps and strings.

Interviewer laid out the round's structure upfront: one DSA question followed by Leadership Principles questions.

Same emphasis as Round 2 on approach, code, dry run, and complexity analysis.

Key takeaways

Narrate the approach before coding, then walk through a dry run and state time/space complexity afterward — interviewers in this loop called this out as important in both technical rounds.
Prepare Leadership Principles answers grounded in specific internship and full-time work examples rather than generic scenarios.
Expect scheduling to move fast: this candidate had Round 1 and Round 2 on the same day, so keep the interview day open rather than assuming rounds are spread out.
Ask clarifying questions when a problem statement is ambiguous instead of guessing at the requirements.
Treat the Work Style Assessment as a real part of the OA stage, not an afterthought, since it ran alongside the DSA questions.

Practice a Amazon interview

Rehearse out loud against the kinds of questions in this story — with an AI interviewer that asks follow-ups.

Practice this interview

Source

The questions and process facts come from the candidate's public write-up, linked below. The retelling above is our own summary.

Candidate's public write-up on LeetCode Discuss