Amazon’s interview process tests every candidate against 16 Leadership Principles. Here are 30 real questions with full STAR-format answers — organised by LP, covering engineering, PM, operations, and data roles.
Amazon runs one of the most structured hiring processes in tech. Every stage is designed to assess you against the Leadership Principles — not just your technical skills. Understanding the pipeline before you walk in is itself a competitive advantage.
Stage 1 — Online Application. Your resume is scanned by Amazon’s ATS (Workday) before a human ever sees it. The system checks for LP-aligned language, quantified achievements, and role-specific keywords. If your resume doesn’t pass this filter, nothing else matters. Use a tailoring tool to optimise your resume for each specific Amazon job description before applying.
Stage 2 — Recruiter Screen. A 20–30 minute call with an Amazon recruiter. Expect questions like “Tell me about yourself,” “Why Amazon?” and one or two quick LP-based behavioural questions. The recruiter is checking culture fit and whether you can articulate your experience clearly. Prepare a 90-second career narrative that ends with why Amazon specifically.
Stage 3 — Online Assessment or Phone Screen. For technical roles (SWE, data engineering, ML), this is a 90-minute LeetCode-style assessment via HackerRank or CodeSignal — usually 2 coding problems plus a work simulation. For PM, operations, and business roles, you may get a written work sample or a second phone screen with a hiring manager.
Stage 4 — Virtual Loop (4–6 Rounds). This is the main event. Each interviewer is assigned specific Leadership Principles to assess and will ask 2–4 behavioural questions per LP. Technical roles also include a system design or coding round. Each session runs 45–60 minutes. Loops are conducted over two days on average at Amazon Canada.
Stage 5 — Bar Raiser + Hiring Committee. After the loop, all interviewers submit written feedback scored “Strong Hire,” “Hire,” “No Hire,” or “Strong No Hire.” The hiring committee reviews the packet. The Bar Raiser then makes their own recommendation independently. A single Strong No Hire from the Bar Raiser can — and often does — veto an otherwise positive loop.
Canada-specific note. Most Amazon Canada roles are concentrated in two cities. Vancouver is the hub for AWS infrastructure, Amazon Devices (Echo, Ring, Kindle), Prime Video, and retail technology — it hosts thousands of engineers and PMs. Toronto is home to Alexa AI, Amazon Ads, marketplace seller tools, and several machine learning teams. Recruiters in both cities run the same LP-based process; the difference is in team culture and which LPs tend to surface more often (Dive Deep and Think Big come up heavily in research-oriented Toronto teams).
The Bar Raiser is a senior Amazonian — typically at L6 or above — who has been trained and certified specifically for this role. They are not your future manager. Their mandate is explicitly to ask: “Does this person raise the average of the team, or just meet it?” Bar Raisers often ask the same question multiple times in slightly different ways to see if your story is genuinely yours. They look for specificity (exact numbers, exact decisions, exact dates), uncomfortable situations (times you failed, disagreed with leadership, or changed your mind), and calibration (do you actually know what a strong performer at this level looks like?). Treat every interviewer as though they are the Bar Raiser — because you will not always be told who it is.
Amazon’s 16 LPs are not motivational posters — they are the literal scoring rubric interviewers use. Each interviewer is assigned 1–3 LPs to probe. Understanding what each one actually tests helps you pick the right stories.
Customer Obsession — Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. Amazon tests this by looking for evidence that you sought customer feedback proactively, made trade-offs in the customer’s favour, or changed a decision when customer data said you were wrong. Common in PM, UX, and operations roles.
Earn Trust — Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully even when it’s uncomfortable. Amazon tests this through stories about delivering difficult feedback, admitting mistakes publicly, or building credibility with a sceptical stakeholder. Common in senior IC and management roles.
Ownership — Leaders act on behalf of the entire company, not just their team. Amazon looks for examples where you stepped outside your job description to fix a problem, especially one where no one asked you to. Watch for the trap of saying “we” too much — interviewers want to hear what you specifically did.
Deliver Results — Leaders focus on the key inputs and deliver with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Amazon wants hard evidence: did the project ship? What were the actual metrics? What did you do when things went wrong mid-delivery? Stories with quantifiable outcomes score highest.
Frugality — Accomplish more with less. Amazon values creative constraint-driven solutions. Stories about building something meaningful without extra headcount, budget, or tooling land well. Avoid stories where you simply spent more money to solve the problem.
Invent and Simplify — Leaders expect and require innovation from their teams. Amazon especially prizes the “simplify” half — taking something complex and making it accessible. Good stories involve removing a step from a process, automating something manual, or proposing a solution that was simpler than what the team had been considering.
Are Right, A Lot — Leaders have strong judgment and good instincts. Amazon tests calibration: can you show a time your instinct was right against consensus, and a time you were wrong and updated your view? Both stories are necessary — leaders who are only “right” in their stories raise flags.
Think Big — Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Amazon wants to see that you can articulate a vision that goes beyond the immediate task. Stories that show you proposed a roadmap, not just a feature, or that your work influenced a team two layers above yours, perform well here.
Dive Deep — Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, and are sceptical when metrics and anecdotes differ. Amazon tests this with questions that probe whether you actually understand the data behind your decisions. Saying “I trusted my team’s analysis” without your own review is a red flag.
Bias for Action — Speed matters in business. Amazon distinguishes reversible from irreversible decisions: for reversible ones, move fast. Stories about moving without a complete picture, running experiments, or making a call when consensus couldn’t be reached score well. Stories about waiting for more data rarely do.
Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit — Leaders respectfully challenge decisions they disagree with. Amazon tests both parts: the “Backbone” (did you actually push back?) and the “Commit” (once a decision was made, did you execute it fully?). Avoid stories where you just went along — and avoid stories where you refused to commit after losing the argument.
Hire and Develop the Best — Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and take mentorship seriously. Amazon tests this for anyone interviewing at L5 or above. Stories about informal mentoring, giving career-changing feedback, or identifying hidden talent in an overlooked candidate are ideal.
Learn and Be Curious — Leaders are never done learning and seek to improve themselves. Amazon uses this LP to assess intellectual humility and growth mindset. Stories about becoming competent in a new domain quickly — without being asked — score well.
Strive to Be Earth’s Best Employer — Leaders work to create a safer, more productive, higher-performing, more diverse and just work environment. Amazon often asks about psychological safety, inclusive practices, or how you handled a team conflict with a DEI dimension.
Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility — Amazon acknowledges it has a large footprint and that decisions have societal consequences. Stories about considering impact on users, communities, or the environment — especially when it required a harder path — resonate here.
Amazon assigns each interviewer two or three Leadership Principles to test, so most questions in your loop will map to one of them. Jump straight to the questions tagged with each LP:
Don't have time to memorise 30 stories? Most candidates prepare two strong stories per LP — roughly 6–8 well-rehearsed STAR stories that flex across questions. The PDF download above includes a story-mapping worksheet.
The same 30 Leadership Principle questions get asked at every level — but what counts as a strong answer changes drastically. Here's what each band should focus on:
Interviewers calibrate to internships, capstone projects, hackathons, and student leadership. Lead with: Q1, Q2 (customer focus), Q6 (ownership), Q11 (bias for action), Q16, Q20 (curiosity / invention).
Three traps to avoid: (1) hedging with "we" instead of "I" — Amazon wants individual ownership; (2) picking projects where you weren't the prime mover; (3) skipping the metric. Even a school project has a result — number of users, grade outcome, time saved, retention.
The bar moves from "I did the work" to "I owned an outcome." Expect deeper probes on Q7 (ambiguity), Q9 (sustaining results), Q10 (missed commitments). Interviewers want decisions you owned, trade-offs you made, and explicit follow-through.
One thing that separates the 2–4 year band from freshers: stories with iteration. If your first version didn't work and you adapted, that's a stronger Dive Deep + Are Right A Lot signal than a one-shot success.
Stories should now span multiple teams, multiple stakeholders, and timelines longer than a quarter. Focus on Q7 (ambiguous → delivered), Q21 (Have Backbone), Q22 (disagreement with management), Q25 (influence without authority). The Bar Raiser pays close attention to stories where you operated outside your direct authority.
Frame at least one story around a hard call — saying no to a stakeholder, killing a project, or escalating. Mid-level Amazonians operate up, down, and across, and the interview tests for that explicitly.
At L6 and above, every story should demonstrate scale, leverage, and durable impact. Q26 (vision), Q27 (impact beyond your team), Q28 (broad responsibility), Q23 (developing others) are your strongest material. Avoid stories where you were the individual contributor doing the work — at this level, you should have built the systems, hired the people, and set the strategy.
Senior interviewers probe deeply on Q22 (disagreement) and Q21 (Backbone). Be ready to defend a position against pressure — that's the muscle Amazon explicitly hires for at senior levels.
The 16 LPs get tested in every loop, but each function emphasises different principles and adds role-specific technical or domain questions.
Roughly 50% behavioural + 50% technical. Behavioural rounds lean on Dive Deep, Deliver Results, and Insist on the Highest Standards. Technical rounds include: data structures and algorithms (medium LeetCode), system design (SDE 2 and above), and an LP-flavoured coding question where they probe your decision-making while you code.
Heavy emphasis on Customer Obsession (Q1–Q3), Think Big (Q26–Q27), and Are Right A Lot. Add product sense (one or two design questions like "How would you improve Prime?"), an analytical round (metrics, trade-offs), and a strategy round. PMs are also tested on Insist on the Highest Standards through a writing exercise — the PR/FAQ.
Strong focus on Deliver Results, Frugality, Earn Trust. Expect at least one quantitative case (warehouse throughput, route optimisation, cost-per-unit reductions). The Bar Raiser will probe peak-volume scenarios — Prime Day, Q4 holidays — where you had to scale a process or recover from a disruption.
The first 30–45-minute call covers: motivation ("Why Amazon?"), three or four LP-flavoured behavioural questions (usually Customer Obsession, Ownership, Bias for Action), and a basic role-fit check. Recruiters screen for clear STAR structure, ownership language ("I" not "we"), and metric-backed results. Common phone screen questions: Q1, Q6, Q11, Q22.
The single highest-ROI prep activity is mock interviews with someone who'll push back. Each of the 30 questions in this guide can be turned into a mock prompt. Amazon Interview Intel gives you a 30-question intelligence package tailored to a specific role and your resume, so your mock practice covers the exact LPs and probes you're most likely to face.
The Bar Raiser is one of the most misunderstood parts of Amazon’s process. Many candidates treat it as one more round to get through. It is not.
Who they are. Bar Raisers are senior Amazonians — typically at L6 or above — who have been trained and certified specifically for this role. There are thousands of them across the company. They are selected from outside your hiring team, so they have no relationship with your future manager and no stake in whether your specific role is filled quickly.
What they are looking for. The Bar Raiser’s mandate is a single question: does this candidate raise the average of the team, or just meet it? They are calibrated against hundreds of hires. They know what a strong L5 looks like versus a marginal one. A “good enough to pass” answer that would satisfy a hiring-team interviewer will often not satisfy a Bar Raiser who has heard the same type of story fifty times.
What distinguishes a Bar Raiser session. Bar Raisers frequently ask the same question multiple ways, or follow up a positive answer with “tell me more about what happened after that” or “what specifically did you do in that moment?” They are testing whether your story is genuinely yours — fabricated or rehearsed answers tend to break down under follow-up. They may also probe a moment of failure or uncertainty that your prepared answer glossed over.
What to do about it. There is no guaranteed way to identify the Bar Raiser during your loop — you will not always be told. Amazon deliberately schedules them as a standard round on the calendar. The correct response is simple: treat every interviewer as the Bar Raiser. Bring the same level of specificity, the same willingness to share uncomfortable moments, and the same depth of reflection to every session.
One practical tip: after every story you tell, ask yourself “could someone who wasn’t there verify this from my description?” If the answer is no, the story needs more specific detail.
Every Amazon interviewer leaves the last 5–10 minutes for your questions. The Bar Raiser specifically considers this. Don't waste it on questions you could have Googled. The best questions surface depth, signal your seriousness, and give you data to evaluate the role.
Avoid asking about salary, hours, or hybrid policy — save those for the recruiter call. Your final question should leave the interviewer wanting to advocate for you.
The Bar Raiser is a tenured Amazon employee from outside your hiring team whose sole role is to maintain Amazon’s hiring bar. They assess whether a candidate raises the team’s average — not just meets it — and can veto the rest of the loop’s recommendation with a Strong No Hire. You will not always be told which interviewer is the Bar Raiser, so prepare as if every session could be one.
Prepare at least 2–3 distinct STAR stories per Leadership Principle, with no story used for more than one LP in the same loop. At minimum, have 5–6 strong stories covering Customer Obsession, Ownership, Deliver Results, and Bias for Action — the four most commonly tested LPs across all role types. Aim for stories from the past three years where possible.
Yes. Amazon uses Workday as its ATS and resumes are screened before a recruiter reviews them. Tailor your resume to each specific job description using LP-aligned language and quantified achievements. Include metrics in every bullet and match the exact job title and key required skills from the posting.
A typical Amazon virtual loop consists of 4–6 rounds, each lasting 45–60 minutes and conducted over one or two days. Including the recruiter screen and online assessment, the full process from application to offer usually takes 4–8 weeks. Some teams in high-demand roles (AWS, Alexa) can move faster — as little as three weeks from first contact to offer.
Yes. Amazon has a standard waiting period of 6 months before you can reapply for the same or a similar role at the same level and location. There is no permanent bar for most roles. Use the waiting period to strengthen your STAR stories, address the specific LPs where you received feedback that you underperformed, and retailor your resume to the specific role before reapplying.
These are the questions every candidate sees. The ones that actually decide your offer are tailored to one specific company and role — pulled from real candidate reports, not templates. See what a tailored interview package looks like →
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