Amazon SDE Intern Interview (India): 2 Rounds with Hiring Managers & 90% Behavioral (LP) – Is this normal?
Hi everyone,
I recently finished Round 1 and Round 2 for an Amazon India SDE Internship (On-Campus). I cleared the OA, and due to some scheduling shifts, my first round was offline and the second was online.
What’s bothering me is the format. In both rounds, I was interviewed by Hiring Managers (HMs) rather than SDEs. Both rounds followed this exact structure:
Duration: 60 Minutes.
Behavioral/LP: ~50 minutes. They went incredibly deep into my STAR stories (projects, leadership roles).
Coding: Only the last 5–10 minutes. The questions were very "Easy" (think basic Array/Dictionary manipulations).
Meanwhile, all my classmates who were shortlisted got the "standard" experience: 20-30 mins of LPs followed by LeetCode Medium/Hard questions on Graphs, DP, and Trees.
My concerns:
Why did I get two HMs while others got SDEs?
Does the lack of a "real" DSA challenge mean they aren't serious about my candidacy?
The HMs seemed to be from Amazon Pay (Customer Experience/Complaints side). Does this team-specific context change the interview bar?
Has anyone else experienced a "Manager-only" loop for an SDE role? Does this mean they are prioritizing culture fit, or did I just get a "lighter" technical bar?