Amazon · System design

Amazon system design interview questions

28 questions, tiered for the Amazon loop. High-level and low-level design prompts framed the way Amazon design rounds tend to run, with clarifying questions, requirements, a mermaid architecture diagram, deep dives, and trade-offs per level.

What the rounds decide

Object-oriented / low-level design rounds. Commonly reported to appear more often at Amazon than at some peer companies, especially for mid-level and senior candidates — expect to design a class hierarchy for a real-world system (parking lot, elevator, vending machine) and defend extensibility choices.

System design (high-level) rounds. From senior level up, scored on scoping, trade-offs, and depth, with Amazon interviewers commonly reported to probe cost and operational trade-offs (retries, backpressure, monitoring) more than product-facing UX trade-offs.

Other Amazon lists: Coding · Problem solving

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must20 questions

Solve these cold. They cover the patterns this loop leans on hardest.

Design a Chat Messaging Systemstartermediumhld · websockets · fanout
Design a Collaborative Document Editorstarterhardhld · ot-crdt · realtime
Design a Distributed Cachemediumhld · caching · consistent-hashing
Design a Distributed Key-Value Storehardhld · replication · consistency
Design a News Feedmediumhld · fanout · ranking
Design a Rate Limitermediumhld · distributed-counter · algorithms
Design a URL Shortenermediumhld · key-generation · storage
Design a Video Streaming Platformhardhld · storage · cdn
Design a Web Crawlerhardhld · queue · politeness
Design Cloud File Storage and Synchardhld · storage · sync
Design Search Autocompletemediumhld · trie · ranking
Design Top-K Heavy Hittershardhld · streaming · count-min-sketch
Elevator Systemhardlld · ood · scheduling
In-Memory File Systemmediumlld · tree · trie
Logging Frameworkmediumlld · chain-of-responsibility · async
Parking Lotmediumlld · ood · state
Rate Limiter Librarymediumlld · token-bucket · sliding-window
Snake Gamemediumlld · ood · deque
Text Editor with Undo/Redomediumlld · command-pattern · stack
Vending Machinemediumlld · state-machine

should8 questions

Work through once, then revisit any you could not finish on paper.

Design a Distributed Message Queuehardhld · queue · replication
Design a Metrics Monitoring and Alerting Systemhardhld · time-series · aggregation
Design a Notification Systemmediumhld · queue · fanout
Design a Payment Systemhardhld · idempotency · ledger
Design a Ride Matching Servicehardhld · geospatial · realtime
Design an Ad Click Event Aggregation Systemfreehardhld · streaming · aggregation
Design an Email Servicehardhld · storage · search
Design Nearby Places Searchhardhld · geospatial · indexing

Free starter pack

13 must-tier questions with full solutions

FAQ

Questions people ask

Are these the real Amazon system design questions?

They are original questions built around the patterns commonly reported from Amazon loops, not leaked or copied problems. Interviewers rotate questions constantly; preparing by pattern and tier is what transfers.

What do must / should / stretch mean?

Must: the patterns a Amazon system design round leans on hardest; solve them cold. Should: work once and revisit. Stretch: senior-level or follow-up material.

What is free?

Every problem statement, examples and hints on this list. One system design question is fully open as a preview, and signing in unlocks the 13-question starter pack. The worked approach, solution, tests and per-company notes are in the guide.