Amazon Interview Guide & Preparation
Amazon interviews are uniquely structured around their 16 Leadership Principles. Every interview round includes behavioral questions tied to specific LPs. Technical questions are practical and often tied to real Amazon problems around scale, reliability, and customer obsession.
Interview Process
Online Application / Referral
Apply through Amazon Jobs or via employee referral. Some roles include an Online Assessment (OA) with two coding problems and work simulation questions.
Online Assessment (OA)
For many roles: two algorithmic coding challenges (70 minutes) plus a work styles assessment. The OA is auto-graded and determines if you advance.
Phone Screen
A 60-minute call with a hiring manager or senior engineer. Expect one coding problem plus 2-3 behavioral questions mapped to Leadership Principles.
Onsite Loop (Virtual or In-Person)
Four to five 60-minute interviews. Each round pairs one technical/coding question with 1-2 Leadership Principle behavioral questions. One interviewer is the designated Bar Raiser.
Bar Raiser Review
The Bar Raiser is a trained interviewer from outside the hiring team who has veto power. They ensure the candidate raises the bar for the team.
Debrief & Offer
All interviewers meet for a debrief. Hiring requires consensus and Bar Raiser approval. Offers include base (capped), signing bonus (front-loaded over 2 years), and RSUs (back-loaded: 5/15/40/40 vesting).
Common Topics
Sample Questions
Behavioral (Bias for Action)
Tell me about a time you made a decision without all the data you needed. How did it turn out?
System Design
Design an e-commerce order processing system that handles millions of orders per day with real-time inventory updates.
Coding
Given a list of customer reviews, group all anagrams together. Return the groupings.
Implement an LRU cache with O(1) get and put operations.
Behavioral (Customer Obsession)
Describe a time you went above and beyond for a customer. What did you do and what was the impact?
Preparation Tips
Memorize and internalize all 16 Leadership Principles — prepare 2-3 STAR stories for each
Focus on Customer Obsession, Ownership, Bias for Action, and Deliver Results — these come up most frequently
For coding rounds, practice medium-level LeetCode problems; Amazon rarely asks hard DP problems
System design questions often revolve around e-commerce: design a recommendation engine, order management, or delivery tracking system
Quantify impact in behavioral answers: use specific metrics like percentages, dollar amounts, or time saved
The Bar Raiser interview is the most critical — be genuine and demonstrate strong LPs
Practice the OA under timed conditions if your role requires it
Tech Stack
Related Companies
Microsoft
Meta
Apple
Shopify
Uber
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