Amazon Front-End Engineer Interview Prep

Front-End Engineers at Amazon are responsible for developing the visuals and layout for Amazon’s e-commerce web pages, web applications, and cloud computing applications. They provide creative solutions to improve engagement with users and sellers and develop interfaces for clients, users, and business applications. The Amazon Front-end Engineer interview requires a sound interview prep strategy covering concepts in data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems.

As a front-end engineer, you’ll be tested on your coding and design skills through multiple rounds of interviews, viz. the phone screen interviews and onsite interviews. Only 2-3% of the thousands of applicants clear the interview rounds at Amazon.

This is because Amazon hires only the best engineers. Getting through Amazon’s tech interview might appear daunting, but landing an offer at a FAANG company like Amazon is possible with the right interview prep strategy.

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If you’re a software engineer, a software developer, engineering manager, or tech lead preparing for tech interviews, check out our technical interview checklist, interview questions page, and salary negotiation e-book to get interview-ready! 

Also, read Amazon Coding Interview Questions and Amazon Onsite Interview Questions for specific insights and guidance on Amazon tech interviews.

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In this article, we’ll look at the best ways to prepare for the Amazon Front-end Engineer interview. We’ll outline the process, list sample interview questions, and suggest proven tips on how to land an offer at Amazon.

Amazon Front End Engineer Roles and Responsibilities

Qualifications and Skills Required for Amazon Front-End Engineers

The Amazon Front-End Engineer Interview Process

Amazon Front-End Engineer Interview Questions

Amazon Front-End Engineer Interview Tips

How to Prepare for Your Front-End Engineer Interview

Amazon Front-End Engineers Roles and Responsibilities 

Amazon has many teams that employ front-end engineers. While responsibilities can vary across teams, the general responsibilities of front-end engineers at Amazon include:

Working closely with back-end engineers to develop the architecture for applications

Providing creative solutions for web pages and web applications

Building tools to style web applications and pages

Improving site speed and page load time for web pages

Designing and developing the interface for web applications and pages

Creating tools to enhance user engagement and user experience in browsers

Performing cross-device and cross-browser testing to ensure consistency in website speed

Related reading: What Is the Role of a Facebook Front-End Engineer?

Qualifications and Skills Required for Amazon Front-End Engineers

You’ll have to possess a certain set of skills and adequate experience to apply to front-end development jobs at Amazon. This includes:

A bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or IT

Working knowledge of an object-oriented programming language

Working knowledge of user-side languages

Working knowledge of coding applications and web pages

2+ years front-end development experience

Proven experience working with back-end teams to design and develop applications

Amazon Front-End Engineer Interview Process

The Amazon Front-End Engineer interview process comprises four main interview stages:

The Initial HR Screen
The HR Screening involves a quick discussion with a recruiter from Amazon’s Human Resources department. Recruiters try to ascertain if you’re fit for the role you applied for based on your skillset and experience.

The Technical Phone Screen:
This is a remote interview that typically lasts for 30-40 mins. The technical phone screen is conducted by a hiring manager responsible for the recruitment of Front-End Engineers.

You’ll be asked to solve 1-2 coding problems on core data structures in this round. The coding questions asked in this round won’t be complex. This round is meant to test your approach towards problem-solving.

The Onsite Interview:
The Amazon onsite interview comprises 4-5 rounds of interviews, depending on the seniority of the role you’re interviewing for. The main rounds of the onsite interview include:

The Coding Round: Questions in this round will be of medium/hard difficulty, based on algorithms and core data structures. An additional round may be conducted if you’re interviewing for an IC (Individual Contributor) role.

The Front-End Fundamentals Round: In this round, the hiring manager will test your knowledge on JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Libraries, DOM, and other front-end fundamentals. This round lasts for approximately 30 minutes.

The Systems Design Round: This round tests your ability to understand scalable systems. You may be asked to design an arbitrary scalable system with low latency according to a given set of inputs. Questions in this round will focus on front-end development and user interface design.

The Front-End Systems Design Round: This round is for engineers with over 5 years of experience applying for senior positions. You will be tested on JS fundamentals and various other front-end design concepts. You’ll be presented with a design problem, and your solution will be assessed based on modularity, performance, and accessibility.

The Behavioral Round: This round comprises one round to test your responses to workplace situations and a  Bar Raiser round that evaluates if you’re a cultural fit based on Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles and your past projects.

Related reading:
Facebook Front-End Engineer Interview Process

Amazon Front-End Engineer Interview Questions

Here are some sample interview questions that are asked at front-end engineering interviews at Amazon.

Amazon Front-End Engineer Coding Interview Questions

Write a code to determine if there are three integers in a given array of integers whose sum equals a given value.

Write a program function to clone a given directed graph such that the cloned graph has the same edges and vertices.

Write a code to merge two given sorted linked lists such that the returning linked list is also sorted.

Given the roots of two binary trees, write a code to determine if the two binary trees are identical or not.

Given the root node of a binary tree “B,” write a code to swap the right and left children for each node of the tree.

Write a code to reverse the order of words in a given sentence.

Given an array of size N, write a code to search for the second largest element in the array.

Given an array A of size N, write a function to find the minimum index-based distance between two elements in the array.

Recommended reading: How to Crack the Front-End Coding Interview

Amazon Front-End Engineer Behavioral Interview Questions

How do you avoid burnout when working on a challenging project?

Give us an instance when you adapted quickly to a new project.

Tell us about a time when you disagreed with your superior.

Tell us about a time when you had to deal with a difficult client.

Tell us about a time when you missed a project deadline. How did you deal with the situation?

Check out a long list of Amazon Behavioral Questions and Amazon Leadership Principles Questions specially curated to help with your Amazon behavioral interview prep. 

Amazon Front-End Engineer Interview Tips

Begin your prep at least 10 weeks in advance because the subject matter to be covered is vast.

Practice whiteboard coding for the onsite interview since recruiters can ask you to write code on a whiteboard. If you aren’t familiar with coding on a whiteboard, you may find it difficult to solve problems and articulate your thoughts simultaneously.

Amazon assigns significant weightage to performance at behavioral interviews. The Bar Raiser round is designed to evaluate if you’re the right cultural fit at Amazon. Prepare well for the behavioral interviews.

Answer questions on your past projects in the Situation, Task, Action, Result (STAR) format. This gives recruiters proper context about tasks you undertook to achieve project objectives.

Create a portfolio of your past projects and list details in the STAR format to gain a competitive edge.

While practicing problems, identify patterns and learn how to apply them to new problems. This is a proven way to improve your problem-solving skills.

Become well-versed with machine learning concepts and core concepts of a programming language of your choice.

Related reading:
Facebook Front-End Engineer Interview Prep

How to Prepare for Your Front-End Engineer Interview

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