SDE II building distributed control-plane and data-movement systems for EBS Snapshots at AWS scale

Amazon is hiring an SDE II for the EBS Snapshots team, which builds and operates one of AWS's largest distributed storage systems underpinning EC2 launches, disaster recovery, and backups. The role covers control plane APIs, large-scale cross-region data movement, and storage lifecycle management, with a 2+ years experience bar.

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Likely format

Amazon's typical SDE loop: online assessment, phone screen, then an onsite/virtual loop of 4-5 rounds mixing coding, distributed-systems design, and Leadership Principles behavioral interviews with a bar raiser.

What this interview tests

Distributed storage system design (control plane + data movement)
Trade-offs between performance, availability, durability, and cost
End-to-end feature ownership (design doc to launch)
Cross-region data consistency and operations
Debugging latency/correctness issues in unfamiliar distributed codebases
Cross-team collaboration on shared infrastructure

Common question themes

Design a control-plane API for a distributed storage/backup feature

How would you handle cross-region consistency for a data operation

Tell me about a distributed system feature you owned from design through launch

Debugging a latency issue in a distributed system

How do you balance new feature work against infrastructure modernization/tech debt

Amazon Leadership Principles behavioral questions (Ownership, Dive Deep)

How candidates describe it

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

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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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