Diagnose Return Eligibility Scoring Bugs

Quick Overview

This question evaluates debugging and root-cause analysis skills related to scoring logic, data integrity, feature engineering, and system reliability in return-eligibility services.

Diagnose Return Eligibility Scoring Bugs

Company: Amazon

Role: Software Engineer

Category: Software Engineering Fundamentals

Difficulty: hard

Interview Round: Online Assessment

You are working on an e-commerce return-eligibility service. For each return request, the service computes a risk score using signals such as: - how many items the customer has returned before, - the value of the item, - how long the customer account has been active, - item category and past fraud/abuse signals. If the risk score is too high, the item should be marked as not returnable. Recently, the system has incorrectly allowed some high-risk items to be returned. In an AI-assisted debugging round, explain how you would investigate the issue and identify six concrete classes of defects that could cause these false approvals. For each defect, describe how to detect it, how to fix it, and how to prevent it from recurring.

Overview: This question evaluates debugging and root-cause analysis skills related to scoring logic, data integrity, feature engineering, and system reliability in return-eligibility services.

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Jan 12, 2026
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You are working on an e-commerce return-eligibility service. For each return request, the service computes a risk score using signals such as:

  • how many items the customer has returned before,
  • the value of the item,
  • how long the customer account has been active,
  • item category and past fraud/abuse signals.

If the risk score is too high, the item should be marked as not returnable. Recently, the system has incorrectly allowed some high-risk items to be returned.

In an AI-assisted debugging round, explain how you would investigate the issue and identify six concrete classes of defects that could cause these false approvals. For each defect, describe how to detect it, how to fix it, and how to prevent it from recurring.

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