What each level must show

Titles differ by company: Amazon writes SDE I, II and III. Years of experience per level also differ, so treat the tags as rough. Lines marked community-reported come from candidates' public write-ups, not from the company.

• final year, new grad

  Fresher / campus

  Usually an online test first, then one or more DSA interviews.

  what they say

  • Amazon's university online assessment has a coding part that takes about 70 minutes on average.
  • Microsoft says student interviews look at your base knowledge, critical thinking, problem solving and ability to learn.
  • On campus, a company often gives a pre-placement talk and then a test (IIT Madras placement guide).

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  • Correct code for Easy and Medium problems.
  • Big-O for what you wrote.
  • That you can learn: use hints well.

  train itthe roadmaponline assessments

• early career

  SDE-1

  Same DSA as campus. A common expectation (not an official rule): finish more comfortably inside the time and write cleaner code.

  what they say

  • Amazon: know how common data structures work inside, their runtimes and how they use memory.
  • Amazon: know traversals, divide and conquer, and BFS vs DFS trade-offs.
  • Microsoft: a 45-minute round. Plan first, test before "done", explain the Big-O.

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  • Medium problems, start to finish, in time.
  • Production-style Java: names, helpers, edge cases.
  • Trade-offs between two approaches.

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• a few years in

  SDE-2

  DSA is still there, but now design joins it.

  what they say

  • Amazon SDE II: a loop of four 55-minute interviews, with at least one system design question.
  • Amazon SDE II: "scalable, robust, and well-tested code" is the main evaluation criteria.
  • Amazon's SDE II online assessment: two coding questions in 90 minutes, then system design scenarios.
  • Many Indian product companies include a machine-coding round; candidates report it at SDE-2, and sometimes with only a year of experience (community-reported).

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  • Reach the good approach with fewer hints.
  • Talk about scale: what if n is 10⁸?
  • Code that is easy to extend.

  train itdesign data structuresmachine coding

• SDE-3 and above

  Senior

  Often fewer pure coding rounds, more design and leadership. But you still have to code.

  what they say

  • Amazon SDE III: a loop of five 55-minute interviews.
  • Amazon SDE III phone screen: 60 minutes with a senior leader, half Leadership Principles, half coding and system design.
  • Meta: interviewing.io's guide reports that E7+ candidates get only one coding round onsite, and it is AI-assisted (community-reported).

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  • A clean solution quickly, with no drama.
  • Depth on trade-offs and scale.
  • Stories of ownership, in STAR form (situation, task, action, result).

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Google says every candidate is assessed with clear rubrics, the same ones for everyone considered for that role. Across companies, the same four areas — solve, code, test, explain — come up at every level. What rises with the level is how fast and how deep you are expected to go.

Our advice, based on the official pages above.

• Fresher or SDE-1

  Finish the core stages of the course. Aim to solve Mediums in about 30 minutes, out loud.

  train itroadmapdrills

• SDE-2 or senior

  Keep DSA sharp with timed mocks, and add machine coding and design. Have four or five STAR stories ready.

  train itmock roundsmachine coding