Amazon runs its own online assessment, usually shortened to OA, rather than buying one off the shelf. What you get depends on the role you applied for, and Amazon describes each version on its careers site. Here is what each one involves, from Amazon's own pages.
Software engineer, full time or new graduate
The OA has four parts. These are Amazon's average times:
- Coding: two problems, about 70 minutes.
- Work Styles: about 15 minutes. Questions about how you prefer to work.
- Work Simulation: about 60 minutes on average, with 120 allowed. Realistic situations from a software engineer's week.
- Survey: about 5 minutes.
Set aside up to two hours. Depending on the country, the OA arrives in one part or two, and the Work Simulation isn't used in every country; Amazon gives China as an example.
Software engineering intern
Interns get coding, Work Styles and the survey: about 90 minutes in total. Amazon's page doesn't list a Work Simulation for interns.
Cohesyve
Practise this before it counts
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SDE II
For experienced engineers the OA is different:
- Coding: two questions in 90 minutes, on HackerRank. This is the only timed section.
- System design: about 15 minutes, in which you rate possible actions rather than drawing anything.
- Work styles: about 10 minutes.
You have seven days to complete it and should hear back within two days of finishing. If you don't move forward, you can reapply after six months, and an earlier pass may carry over.
Non-tech roles
For roles outside software, Amazon describes two kinds of assessment:
- Work style assessments, 10 to 20 minutes. For example, choosing which of two statements describes you better.
- Work sample simulations, 20 to 60 minutes. For example, reading a chart, answering a customer or prioritising tasks.
They are often timed. Amazon says that, apart from software roles, you don't need to prepare.
The Work Simulation, explained
The Work Simulation is the part people find most unfamiliar. You work through emails, videos and messages from a virtual team, as if it were a day in the job. Each scenario offers four or five possible responses; you either rate each one or pick the best.
This format is known as a situational judgement test. What it is looking for is judgement in context: whether you would ask the right person, raise a risk early, put the customer first, or take on the right amount of work. Amazon's Leadership Principles are the clearest guide to what it values.
The rules
- About 12 programming languages are available for the coding questions.
- Public documentation is allowed, but not sites that need a login, and your browsing is logged.
- Print-screen ends the session, and Amazon advises against copying and pasting.
- Webcam and ID: parts of the test use your webcam, and in North America you show photo ID.
- A laptop or desktop is required.
How it's scored
Amazon doesn't publish a score scale, a pass mark or an answer key, for the coding or the behavioural parts. Be sceptical of anyone who tells you exactly how to answer the Work Styles questions to pass: Amazon has never said.
How to prepare
Take Amazon's practice test. Amazon offers a free two-question coding practice test. Do it in the same environment and language you'll use for the real one.
Practise coding against the clock. Two problems in about 70 minutes leaves room to think, test and tidy, but not to get stuck for half an hour. Practise problems on arrays, strings, hash maps, trees and graphs, and practise explaining your approach in comments.
Read the 16 Leadership Principles properly. The Work Styles and Work Simulation questions are built around them. Don't memorise slogans; think about what each principle would mean on an ordinary Tuesday, and which ones pull against each other.
For the Work Simulation, read everything. Scenarios often hinge on a detail in an earlier email or a stakeholder's priorities. Rate the options by what a strong teammate would actually do, not by what sounds most impressive.
Check your setup the day before. Webcam, browser, a quiet room and, in North America, your ID. A technical problem mid-test is avoidable stress.
Where Cohesyve fits
The Work Simulation is a job simulation: realistic tasks, judged on how you handle them. Cohesyve, which publishes this guide, lets you practise that kind of assessment for your target role, with a report on where you lost marks. It isn't an Amazon practice test, and it doesn't use Amazon's questions.
Sources
Checked 2 October 2026.