# Amazon SDE 2 Interview Experience (India) — R1 | Real Questions Asked | May 2026
Amazon
Technical Interview
interview experience
SDE2
Team: Amazon Fulfillment Technologies team
Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka
Just finished my Amazon SDE 2 Round 1 interview, and I wanted to share the exact experience so others can prepare smarter.
This round was a mix of 2 coding questions + Leadership Principles (LPs).
Overall difficulty: Medium-Hard to Hard
Interviewer vibe: calm, analytical, expected strong communication
Interview Structure
Quick intro
2 DSA questions
2 Leadership Principle questions
Small discussion around optimizations / approach
Total duration: ~60 mins
Question 1 — Binary Tree Cameras (Hard)
This was the first question and honestly not something I expected.
Problem statement:
Given a binary tree, place cameras on nodes such that each camera covers:
parent
itself
immediate children
Return the minimum number of cameras needed.
Example:
1
/
2
/ \
3 4
\
14
\
15
Optimal camera placement:
2, 14
Minimum cameras = 2
This is exactly:
LeetCode 968 — Binary Tree Cameras
Interview expectation
Brute force would kill you here.
The interviewer was clearly looking for:
Greedy intuition
Bottom-up tree thinking
State modeling
Communication clarity
Key insight:
Never greedily place cameras at leaves.
Because leaves only cover:
themselves
parent
Better to place cameras on their parents.
Final approach:
Postorder DFS
Node states:
needs camera
has camera
already covered
Difficulty in interview:
8.5/10
Question 2 — Greedy + Stack Variant (Amazon Twist)
Problem:
Given a string s, remove duplicate letters so every letter appears exactly once.
Return the largest lexicographical possible result.
Example:
Input:
abccab
Output:
cab
Constraint:
1 <= n <= 10^5
At first this looked custom, but it’s basically:
LeetCode 316 — Remove Duplicate Letters
BUT with a twist.
Original LC 316 asks for:
smallest lexicographical
Amazon changed it to:
largest lexicographical
That means same monotonic stack pattern, but reverse comparison logic.
What interviewer was testing:
Pattern recognition
Adaptability
True understanding vs memorized solutions
Difficulty:
7.5/10
Sneaky question.
Leadership Principle Questions Asked
1. Dive Deep
Asked something along the lines of:
“Tell me about a time you had to investigate a technical issue deeply and identify the root cause.”
This is classic Amazon.
They care about:
debugging depth
data-driven investigation
root cause analysis
technical ownership
2. Bias for Action
Question was similar to:
“Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision quickly without having complete information.”
They’re checking:
urgency
ownership
decision-making
calculated risk-taking
My Preparation Advice
If you’re targeting Amazon SDE2:
Trees
Must do:
LC 124
LC 236
LC 297
LC 968
Path Sum variants
Tree DP problems
Greedy + Stack
Must do:
LC 316
LC 1081
Next Greater Element
Monotonic stack classics
Leadership Principles
Do NOT ignore this.
Seriously.
Amazon weighs LPs heavily.
Prepare STAR stories for:
Ownership
Dive Deep
Bias for Action
Customer Obsession
Deliver Results
Invent & Simplify
Are Right, A Lot
Earn Trust
Biggest Takeaway
Amazon SDE2 is not about memorizing LeetCode.
They intentionally twist familiar patterns.
If you understand:
why a solution works
not just what the code is
you’ll survive.
Good luck everyone
Would
love to hear if others got similar questions.
This kind of post tends to do well because:
✅ exact questions
✅ difficulty rating
✅ prep guidance
✅ LP details
✅ Amazon-specific insights