Amazon Interview Questions, Process & How to Prepare

1. Recruiter screen covering your background, motivation and logistics.
2. One or two role-specific screens: a technical/coding round for engineering, or a written or case exercise for business roles.
3. An onsite or virtual loop of several interviews, each typically anchored on different Leadership Principles.
4. A "bar raiser" interviewer from outside the hiring team joins the loop to keep the hiring standard consistent.
5. Debrief and decision, followed by a recruiter call with the outcome.

Stages vary by role and year — confirm with your recruiter.

• Tell me about a time you took ownership of something outside your job description.
• Describe a decision you made with incomplete data. What did you do and what happened?
• Tell me about a time you disagreed with a manager or peer. How did you handle it?
• Describe the most complex problem you have solved. What made it complex?
• Tell me about a time you failed or missed a goal. What changed afterward?
• Give an example of when you simplified a process or removed work rather than adding it.

• Ownership: you speak about outcomes you drove, not what "the team" did.
• Bias for action: you can show reasonable decisions made quickly with imperfect information.
• Customer focus: you connect your work to the person or business on the other end.
• Depth: you can go three questions deeper on any number, system or tradeoff you mention.
• Learning from failure: a candid failure story with a concrete change carries more weight than a polished win.

Behavioural answers land when they follow a shape the interviewer can score. STAR gives you that shape:

• Situation — the context in two sentences: where you were, what was at stake, who else was involved.
• Task — what you specifically were responsible for, not what the team was handed.
• Action — the bulk of the answer: the decisions you made, the tradeoffs, and what you did when it went sideways.
• Result — what changed, and how you know. Only claim a number you can actually explain; if you cannot break it down under a follow-up question, leave it out.

Prepare six to eight stories rather than one per question. Strong stories get reused across ownership, conflict, failure and delivery prompts.

More on building a STAR story bank

• Read Amazon's published Leadership Principles and map two of your own stories to each of the ones your role touches most.
• Read the job posting closely and note the specific verbs and metrics it uses.
• Review the team's product or service as a customer would, and write down one honest friction point.
• Check recent company news and earnings commentary for the business area you are interviewing with.
• Prepare one question that shows you already understand the team's problem space.