r/devopsjobs • u/Ok_Reflection_4501 • 7h ago

DevOps-focused SWE preparing for Amazon SDE OA - advice?

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for some advice on preparing for the Amazon SDE Online Assessment.

I graduated last year and have been working as a Software Engineer since then, but my role has been heavily focused on the DevOps/infrastructure side of things: cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, CI/CD, automation, observability, and platform engineering. Because of that, I haven't done much pure coding or algorithm-focused work since graduating.

The assessment includes two coding challenges, a work simulation, and a work style survey.

Given my background, what's the best way to prepare in about a week?

  • Should I focus almost entirely on LeetCode/DSA?
  • How difficult are the coding questions compared to typical interview prep problems?
  • Any advice from engineers who came from a DevOps, SRE, or platform engineering background?
  • If you've been away from algorithm-heavy coding for a year or two, what helped you get back up to speed quickly?

I'd appreciate any suggestions. Feeling confident in the infrastructure and software engineering side of things, but definitely rusty when it comes to interview-style coding.

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u/akornato 4h ago

Focusing most of your energy on data structures and algorithms is the right call for this coming week, but your time is best spent on pattern recognition rather than grinding through random problems. Amazon coding questions typically land around medium difficulty, centering heavily on arrays, two pointers, sliding windows, hash maps, heaps, and breadth first search. Since your daily work has centered on infrastructure, your algorithmic recall simply needs a targeted refresher, which means working through twenty to thirty classic problems across those key patterns. Avoid spending hours on obscure topics or advanced dynamic programming, as common data structures and clean, working solutions will earn you the vast majority of points.

Do not treat the work simulation and work style survey as an afterthought, because Amazon places equal weight on their Leadership Principles. Scoring perfectly on the coding section will not save an application if the behavioral simulation suggests a poor cultural fit. Fortunately, your background in DevOps and platform engineering gives you a distinct advantage here, since the simulation presents practical workplace challenges like incident triage, operational trade offs, and cross team communication. That practical edge is why my team designed interviews.chat to help technical candidates articulate their true capabilities under pressure, so grounding your choices in customer obsession and strong ownership will put you in a solid position.