Just finished a full SWE loop at American Express (NYC-based, targeting a senior IC role in their digital products org). Sharing because I couldn't find anything recent when I was prepping.
The process ran about 5 weeks start to finish:
Week 1: Initial recruiter screen, ~30 minutes. Standard stuff: walk me through your background, why amex, current comp/expectations. No technical questions here.
Week 2: Online assessment via HackerRank. Two coding problems, 90 minutes total. See my other post in this thread for details on that.
Week 3: Nothing. I genuinely thought I'd fallen into a black hole.
Week 4: Technical phone screen with a senior SWE. One medium-ish DSA problem (did it in Python, no issues), then about 20 minutes of system design at a pretty high level. The interviewer was clearly reading from a rubric on the design portion.
Week 5: Onsite / virtual final loop. Four rounds: Coding: two problems, one easy-medium, one clearly medium. About 55 minutes total with intro. System design: 45 minutes. "Design a notification service" (classic but fair). Behavioral: 45 minutes with a hiring manager. Very STAR-heavy, they actually said "we use the STAR method" at the start. Leadership/values: 30 minutes with a director. More culture-fit, talked about their leadership competencies, asked me to give examples of driving cross-functional work.
Total interview count: 6 rounds including the phone screen. The whole thing was virtual for me.
Leveling felt a little opaque. I was targeting senior but the recruiter mentioned they sometimes re-level after the loop based on performance. Something to watch if that matters to you.
Happy to answer questions.