Roles of SDE-3 at Amazon
An Amazon SDE-3's role is expected to work directly with other PEs(Principal Engineer) and TPMs(Technical Program Manager) in the organization. The focus is to define the experience and develop the tech architecture of all the platforms.
Roles and responsibilities of SDE-3’s are:-
- Possess the end-to-end design of the platforms and modules SDEs will create.
- Work with the product to purify the vision and influence the tech roadmap.
- The role may also demand guiding the development and delivery effort with other SDEs.
- Working in an agile environment to deliver high-quality software against aggressive schedules.
- As part of the team, you will work to ensure Amazon.in is speedy and has the best experience. It's a fantastic opportunity to develop and improve experiences for Mobile devices first.
- Working on a wide range of technologies. This includes AWS EC2, SQS, Amazon WW platforms, Machine Learning, ElastcicSearch, Big Data, Android, iOS, Amazon Horizonte, JavaScript, and React JS. This is to create unique experiences for Indian retail customers.
- Working on analyzing the latency across the various Amazon pages using RedShift, MapReduce, Java, Elastic Search and Machine Learning.
- Acquiring the chance to code on almost all critical pages on the retail website, build features, and enhance business metrics.
- Reducing latency for customers by decreasing the bytes on the wire and adapting the UX based on network bandwidth. You will be part of a team that obsesses about the performance of our customer's experience and enjoy the flexibility to follow what makes sense. It is like enjoying an experimental and research-oriented group of Cowboys functioning in a fast-paced environment. A group which is always keen to bring on significant challenges.
Salary of SDE-3 at Amazon
The average Amazon Software Development Engineer III salary in India is ₹ 93 Lakhs per year for employees with Experience between 8-11 years. So it is safe to say that Software Development Engineer III's salary at Amazon ranges between ₹ 70 Lakhs to ₹ 102 Lakhs per year. 🤑 💸 💰
Eight years of experience is usually toward the minimum criteria for SDE 3 for Amazon. So assuming that if someone is hoping to get a designation of SDE 3, still, they might be getting the title of SDE 2 unless your interview has been exceptional. 🧐 🙇🏻♀️
In any case, the salary will remain the same across all Development Centers in India for a new hire if he wants to change the location during the process, which seldom happens. About the salary, it depends on negotiations and the last few payslips.
There can be some approximations made around this, going by the salaries of SDE 1 and SDE 2. Looking at them, it can be told that the fixed component would be around 30 - 45 lacs. The joining bonus would be about 8 - 10 lacs(delivered monthly over 2 years rather than a lump sum), and the shares would be around 25 lacs. They would be conferred over time, and more are given every year depending on performance. 💹
Skills Required for Amazon SDE-3
- It is expected that a person going for SDE 3 would possess excellent software development and programming experience.
- A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a comparable blend of technical education and work experience would work as an added benefit.
- These should also come with expertise in at least one modern coding language such as Java, C++, or C#, including object-oriented design.
- Ability to contribute to new and current systems' architecture and design (architecture, scaling, reliability and design patterns).
- Qualifying in designing highly interactive web applications with performance, scalability, accessibility, usability, design, and security in mind.
It may be acceptable to not have significant expertise in all of these. Still, there should be excitement about learning the few not known.
Along with these, a few must-know skills include:
-
Good object-oriented design and coding skills (C/C++ and/or Java). Preferably on a platform like UNIX or Linux.
- Strong software development skills, including design patterns, data structures, and test-driven development. This should also include building highly scalable applications.
-
Understanding and Experience with distributed (multi-tiered) systems, algorithms, and relational and no-SQL databases.
-
Accustomed with creating intricate web applications utilizing Javascript / AJAX, XHTML, CSS.
-
Knowledge or Experience with jQuery, Java, Struts, and other website technologies.
- Understanding Perl or other scripting languages is a great way to stand out.
- Any previous experience working with Big Data or using machine learning to enhance customer experience is desirable.
- Superior verbal and written communication skills.
- Capacity to work in a start-up style environment and the ability to solve complex business problems.
Interview Rounds for Amazon SDE-3
The interview rounds for Amazon SDE-3 generally consists of a screening test and 5 onsite rounds.
Let us understand it more deeply:-
Onsite Round 1 (60 minutes)
This round generally takes place with the hiring manager. It may start with a pretty good introduction of the role and give time to give details of the candidate's past experiences. This is followed by Amazon's infamous behavioural interviews, which target competencies in their 14 Leadership Principles (LPs). For the next 45 minutes, the interviewer may shoot with a barrage of behavioural questions. The goal is to know about instances from past projects where you may have displayed lead-level capabilities. This is a stage where the interviewer is extra attentive and often asks more in-depth questions about specific situations. They may also desire to hear particular scenarios, which are very hard to recollect and something you never faced in your career.
At a very high level, the interviewer may touch upon situations such as( examples):
- Where you gave direct feedback to peers.
- Where you guided junior engineers.
- Situations where you took care of a challenging project with lots at stake.
For the last 10~15 minutes, you may be asked about a system design problem that is most likely something that the interviewer was building or already built.
Getting the requirements clear enough to start putting things together might take a few minutes. Due to lack of time, hurrying into the approach isn't appreciated. The goal is to see how quickly you can solve a system designing scenario.
Onsite Round 2 (60 minutes)
This round takes place with a principal product manager and is not technical. Greeting with a very detailed introduction is the key. After that, it unfolds to be full-on behavioural interview questions.
At a very high level, may touch upon:
- Situations where you may have worked on an ambiguous project.
- Situations where you may have to convince the entire team to break the norm and do things differently.
Being familiar with scrum comes very handy at this stage. Having experience working with product managers is expected to turn into a very smooth conversation if you have worked a lot. It might be drilled down to see how deep the candidate knows from a business perspective about the product he or she was building. Keeping the conversation interesting might be done by talking about more scenarios that the client faced previously. The focus is to cover leadership principles that the interviewer may have intended to analyze.
Onsite Round 3 (60 minutes)
This round happens with a principal engineer who may appear to be a bit tough from the start. As usual, the first 30 minutes are focused on behavioural questions. You can give the same example you used in the previous interviews for some questions. At a high level, the interviewer might touch upon challenging situations like:
- Circumstances where you had to go above your comfort zone.
- Cases where you had to convince your stakeholders to take a different strategy, etc.
In the last 20 minutes, you might get a coding problem of medium difficulty. Example: a problem based on linked lists. You're expected to explain the approach clearly and write a fully working code. Note: There may be several edge cases to the problem that are supposed to be carefully handled. Time management is the key here. It would help if you do not lose the rapport with the interviewer and not go completely silent. Overall, both the behavioural questions and the coding problems are to be solved. You must communicate what you are writing.
Onsite Round 4 (60 minutes)
This round generally happens with an SDE-III, and As usual, the first 30 minutes are behavioural questions about past projects. You may use the same example from previous rounds.
At a very high level, the interviewer can touch on:
- Situations where you did not agree with your team's solution and convinced them with yours.
- Cases where you had to make a difficult decision.
- Cases where you had to agree with the team even though you disagreed.
In the second half, a medium coding problem is expected. Example: a slightly modified form of a typical DP question. You may ask specific questions to make sure you clearly understand the problem.
Suppose the case arises where you're supposed to write the code for a solution but find a bug too late. In that case, you can try explaining how you would write the code to make the interviewer happy. It is necessary to ensure that you don't take the wrong approach to the problem.
Onsite Round 5 (60 minutes)
This is the final round, and it is again with an SDE-III. Likewise, the first 30 minutes were dedicated to behavioural questions from past projects. This is the last chance to discuss any high-impact projects you might have missed in previous rounds. Also, this is to be known that the following questions may be asked on tasks addressed in this stage.
The interviewer might put light upon the following scenarios:
- Circumstances where you had a simple fix for a complex problem.
- Cases where you had a creative idea that made its way to production.
In the second half, you may get a complex graph problem. While reading the problem statement. Try proposing a theoretical solution that could solve the problem, and then try solving the code. If you still couldn't develop a working code, The interviewer might give some hints and point to some bugs in the code. As this is the last round, IT is expected that you raise the bar the highest for a positive outcome.
You can also check out the Amazon Interview Bundle to learn about the Amazon Interview Experience of people.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it easy to crack an Amazon interview?
The interview procedure in Amazon is similar to other big tech companies. To succeed in an interview, you must prepare well. As a result, if you are adequately prepared, you will have no trouble cracking any interview.
How many rounds are there in the Amazon SDE-3 interview?
There are a total of 6 rounds (1 screening test + 5 onsite interviews).
What is the role of SDE-3 at Amazon?
As an Amazon SDE-3, you’re expected to work directly with other PEs(Principal Engineer) and TPMs(Technical Program Manager) in the organization. The focus is to define the experience and develop the tech architecture of all the platforms.
Are Amazon Interviews hard?
Amazon's interview process can be hectic. However, the interview structure is quite the same every time, making it much easier to prepare and minimising surprises.
Conclusion
In this blog, we walked through the amazon SDE-3 job profile, including its roles, salary, skills and interview procedures. We will also look at what is it like to be SDE-3 at Amazon.
To know more about the Amazon Jobs, the preparation guide, different profiles like SDE-1 and SDE-2, the ways to get into Amazon, or different profiles, you can check out these articles:
Check out the Amazon Interview Experience to learn about Amazon’s hiring process.
Refer to our guided paths on Coding Ninjas Studio to learn more about DSA, Competitive Programming, JavaScript, System Design, etc. Enroll in our courses and refer to the mock test and problems available. Take a look at the interview experiences and interview bundle for placement preparations.Do upvote our blog to help other ninjas grow.
Happy Learning Ninja!
569+ registered 
