did the amazon frontend engineer loop for an L5 role on the prime video team in january 2026. i've done loops at two other big tech companies before so i have some comparison points.
amazon's frontend loop is interesting because they don't differentiate as sharply between frontend and fullstack as some companies do. they expect FE engineers to have real javascript depth AND to be comfortable with light system design.
the rounds for my loop:
coding round 1: pure data structures. no DOM, no CSS. lc-style problem on arrays. i was surprised. they treat frontend coding as algorithmic coding, not component-building. if you've been only practicing 'build this react component' you'll be caught off guard.
coding round 2: more applied. a javascript-specific problem about async patterns. they gave me a scenario where i had to implement a rate-limited queue of async requests. this was much more FE-relevant. things like promise chaining, error handling, cancellation semantics. this is where real js depth shows up.
system design: they asked me to design a news feed that needed to handle real-time updates and lazy loading at scale. definitely more fullstack than pure FE. i talked through websocket vs SSE for the real-time layer, virtualized lists for the DOM performance side, and a CDN edge caching strategy. they seemed satisfied with that framing.
LP round: ownership and customer obsession. had solid stories. they pushed on 'how did you know the customer impact' which is a good signal that they want metric-backed answers not vibes.
bar-raiser: this was a mini system design focused on a performance problem. they asked me to diagnose why a page had poor LCP and what i'd change. very concrete. first principles web perf knowledge matters here.
one thing i'd flag: amazon FE interviews are more algorithmic than the industry average for FE. if you come from a company where FE interviews are 80% react and CSS, shift your prep mix. i'd say 60% algo, 30% JS depth, 10% system design for the FE track.
i got the offer. starting q2 2026.