Build the tooling that lets 100+ Neuron engineers ship faster on custom AI silicon

SDE I role on Amazon's Annapurna Labs / AWS Neuron team, building profiling, optimization, and resource-management tooling for ML workloads running on Inferentia and Trainium accelerators. Sits at the intersection of Kubernetes, custom silicon, and large-scale ML infrastructure, with real design ownership on a small, senior team building greenfield capabilities.

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Likely format

Typical Amazon SDE loop: online assessment/phone screen with coding, followed by an onsite/virtual loop mixing coding, system design, and Leadership Principles behavioral interviews.

What this interview tests

Java proficiency plus a secondary language (Go, Python, or TypeScript)
Kubernetes/Docker/containers ecosystem fundamentals
Building tooling for profiling, optimization, and resource management of ML workloads
Software development lifecycle discipline: design, test, build, deploy, CI/CD with Git
Cross-functional collaboration with hardware, software, and customer-facing teams
Root-causing software defects and building automation/metrics

Common question themes

Design a tool to profile or optimize ML workloads on custom accelerators

Explain a container/Kubernetes concept and how you'd apply it to a deployment pipeline

Walk through a coding exercise in Java (or Go/Python/TypeScript)

Describe owning a component end-to-end in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment

How would you instrument and root-cause a production software defect

Amazon Leadership Principles behavioral questions (Ownership, Dive Deep, Bias for Action)

How candidates describe it

Real Software Development Engineer I interview stories — retold from candidates' public write-ups, with sources.

Amazon · SDE I (New Grad, MS CS)Offer

Amazon SDE 1 new grad loop: three online assessments, three interviews, offer in five days

A master's new grad went through Amazon's full three-part online assessment and three 45-minute virtual interviews. Every round opened with Leadership Principles questions before the coding began, and the offer landed within five business days.

Interviewed October 2019 · Seattle, WA, US

Amazon · SDE I (New Grad)Offer

Amazon SDE 1 new grad interview: one OA, four back-to-back onsite rounds, offer

A fresher found the posting through a LinkedIn connection, cleared the OA within a week of applying, and faced a six-hour virtual onsite: four one-hour rounds where every behavioral answer drew three to four follow-up questions.

Interviewed January 2021 · Seattle, WA, US

Amazon · SDE INo offer

Amazon SDE I Interview Experience: Global Selling Team, 2022

A LinkedIn referral bypassed Amazon's usual online assessment for this SDE I candidate, who then worked through a telephonic DSA screen and two technical rounds pairing coding problems with Amazon Leadership Principles questions before receiving no further response.

Interviewed March 2022 · Not specified

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