Amazon SDE Online Assessment - Work Simulation, Work Styles, and Coding Questions
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The Amazon SDE Online Assessment measures your coding ability, problem-solving, and workplace judgment. The Work Simulation is key—it tests how you handle engineering challenges like debugging, prioritizing tasks, and making design trade-offs while applying Amazon’s Leadership Principles.
Here is our 4-step path to success:
- Master the Work Simulation – Practice a realistic SDE simulation that requires making strategic decisions such as developing an inventory system, developing a voting system, and transmitting large video files.
- Work Style Assessment – Align your answers with Amazon’s culture and leadership principles.
- Coding Simulations – Tests vary by applicant level: Intern, New Grad, SDE I, SDE II, or SDET
- Extra Simulation Practice – Build speed, accuracy, and decision-making with additional SDE-focused exercises.
With the right preparation, you’ll be ready to show your abilities, whether you're applying as an Intern, New Grad, SDE I, SDE II, or SDET.
Amazon SDE Online Assessment Practice
- Work Simulation: 2 practice tests with explanations.
- Work Style: 3 surveys (2 SDE, 1 Amazon) with full answers.
- Coding: Fully interactive coding tests & AI-powered feedback
What Is the Amazon SDE Online Assessment?
The Amazon SDE is one of the most common Amazon assessments, and it is an initial screening step that any Amazon candidate applying to Intern, New Grad, SDE I, SDE II, and SDET positions must pass. It includes a coding assessment, a Work Simulation, and a Work Style Assessment:
Interns and New Grads
Part 1 - OA1: Two coding questions
Part 2 - OA2: Work Simulation and Work Style Assessment
SDE 1, SDE 2, and SDET
Part 1 - Coding Challenge with two questions
Part 2 - Work Simulation
Part 3 - SDE Work Style Survey
Part 4 - Amazon Work Style Survey
Below, we go over each of the assessment’s sections in detail:
Amazon SDE Work Simulation
In the SDE Work Simulation section (previously called technical problem solving), Amazon wants to see how you approach system design and problem-solving in real-life style scenarios with coworkers and managers.
When answering, try to think like a system designer—consider trade-offs, keep maintainability in mind, and show how you handle uncertainty.
The test has three modules, each based on real examples from Amazon software engineers, with different tasks and information.
It usually takes 15–20 minutes to finish, and you’ll just need to rate each response using the given options.
Here's an example of a scenario that resembles a work simulation question from the real test:
System Requirements
Hi,
Thank you for joining us for this project. Our team’s responsibility is to develop the first version of the product for the messaging system. We have the following requirements from the product manager:
- Create a versioning system for the message format.
- Implement a serialization system or binary data for individual components within the messages.
- Develop a support system for messages with different motives.
- Timestamp messages and checksums I would appreciate hearing about the actions you think would be appropriate in order to comply with the requirements..
Seo-jun
Video Explanation
https://www.youtube.com/embed/1a-RAf-CZw0?rel=0&modestbranding=1&playsinline=1&autoplay=1&mute=1
Amazon SDE Work Style Assessment
The SDE Work Style Assessment is an untimed personality test, which focuses on the work environment, decision-making, and preferences - in light of Amazon’s culture and Leadership Principles.
Amazon seeks to understand your work style as expressed through your work personality. Each of the personality questions represents a different dilemma, task, or preference that an Amazon SDE employee may encounter.
You will be asked to choose the answer which is most suitable to your understanding, taking Amazon’s Leadership Principles into deep consideration.
The Amazon Workstyle Assessment for SDEs is divided into two surveys:
Evaluates how you approach software development engineer work.
Here’s an example from the practice pack:
When you're brought into a project midway through, which of the following methods are you most inclined to take?
- Create my own project plan so that I’m able to comprehend the next steps.
- Consult with end-users on a regular basis to ensure that product requirements are fully understood.
- To catch up, complete as much work as you can on your own.
- Look for areas where my personal abilities may contribute value to the process
Evaluates how you approach work in general.
See the following example from the prep package:
Amazon Coding Assessment
The Amazon SDE Coding assessment is a timed online programming test with two coding problems limited to 90 minutes. These involve mainly basic data structures and algorithm problems, easy-medium level.
Common Amazon Online Assessment Question Topics:
- Search/ Sort Algorithms
- Trees (especially binary trees)
- Graph Traversal
- Heaps & Stacks
- Linked lists
- Arrays/ Strings
- Hash tables
- Recursion
JobTestPrep's complete practice course covers these topics thoroughly and offers hands-on practice with hundreds of Amazon-style coding questions, based on past Amazon OAs.
FAQs
Interviewing for an Amazon Software Development Engineer role typically spans four to five weeks. The comprehensive recruitment process follows a structured progression of nine phases:
- Application Submission: Initial candidate application.
- Online Assessment Completion: Successful execution of the SDE online evaluation.
- Preference Documentation: Submission of a questionnaire detailing preferences for location, product domain, tech stack, work environment, and career objectives.
- Recruiter Briefing: Consultation with a recruiter to review the subsequent interview stages.
- Formal Interviews: Participation in the structured interview loop.
- Outcome Notification: Communication of the interview decision.
- Team Matching Discussion: Review and discussion of teams aligned with documented preferences.
- Leadership Consultation: Meetings with leadership from prospective matched teams.
- Team Selection: Final acceptance and choice of the new assignment team.
The Amazon coding test is challenging. It’s designed to be hard so that Amazon could shortlist candidates that not only have solid coding skills, but are also able to come up with simple solutions to complicated problems while applying appropriate data structures.
Amazon is interested in evaluating your ability to solve problems, write correct code, and apply DS patterns and algorithms. In doing so, you will be expected to demonstrate the following:
- Problem Statement Retention: Can you read a coding problem and understand what it’s asking?
- Coding Ability: Can you understand the problem, figure out an efficient solution, and then translate the solution into accurate code?
- Data Structure Application: Can you take a problem and apply an appropriate data structure to solve the problem in the simplest way? Do you know when to use a list/map/set/etc?
- Runtime Complexity: Can you go over your own code and assess what runtime complexity and major issues it might have?
- Simplification: Can you create a simple solution to a complicated problem, in a way that most people would understand?
- Optimization: Can you recognize and reach an optimal solution?
Amazon will not examine:
- Deep Knowledge of a Specific Language: You can code in any language that you feel comfortable with, and Amazon won’t be testing your expertise in specific languages.
- Purposefully Confusing or Tricky Questions: The coding problems are straightforward and are not intended to trick you in any way.
*Note: As of 2022, Amazon removed the coding approach questionnaire and debugging questions parts.
You're expected to complete both problems. Manage your time effectively by checking the on- screen timer regularly during the coding challenge.
Don't get stuck on one question. Move on to the next one and return to it later if you need to.
You can take a break after the coding challenge and before you advance to the Work Simulation and Work Style Survey sections.
You don’t need to log out to take a quick break. If, for some reason, you do need to log out, you can click on the ‘Start My Assessment’ link to log back in.
Read About Other Popular Amazon Online Assessments
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