The Top Amazon Interview Questions| Ex-Bar Raiser

There's a lot of information out there telling you what the top Amazon interview questions are. As a Bar Raiser, I’ve had complete access to all of the information and training materials associated with Amazon interviewing. Some of that information Amazon makes public and some of it they don’t.

The AIQB (Amazon Interview Question Bank) is one of those things they don’t choose to make public, although versions can be found on the web. Many websites or coaches will tell you they know the top/most common questions asked at interview. Well they don’t!!

Why No One Knows The Top Amazon Interview Questions

No one knows the top Amazon interview questions, as it’s not stored in any form in Amazon’s systems that is mineable.

Unless they have completed their own statistically significant and representative survey, across all countries, divisions, roles and levels Amazon hires for globally- they’re making it up or have copied it from someone else, who was making it up.

I don’t know the top/most common Amazon interview questions but I do know the questions I see online claimed as being most top/most common, that clearly aren’t.

How You Prepare For Each Possible Question

There are 140+ individual questions in the AIQB. There is no way you can prepare answers for all of them.

My strong advice is to identify the high priority Leadership Principles for your (read the AIWBlog "Identifying Your Key Amazon Leadership Principles".Then focus your time on understanding the facets of those Leadership Principles. The Amazon Interview Whizz Academy offers Masterclasses for $15 on each Leadership Principle. Then make sure your best examples cover those Leadership Principles. Finally make sure you have at least 2 examples for each.

That will be time much better spent than trying to guess and come up with exact answers for 140+ questions you could be asked.

Which Questions Not To Waste Your Time Even Thinking About

Here’s my list gathered from high ranking online sources on Google. Each site claimed they were the top/most common Amazon interview questions. I explain below how you shouldn’t waste your time preparing for them and why. I’m not saying no one ever asked them, but I am saying they aren’t the most common.

”Walk me through how Amazon Kindle books would be priced.”- clearly a specific question for the Devices team. If you’re interviewing for any of the hundreds of other teams in Amazon, ignore this.

“What would you do if you found out that your closest friend at work was stealing?”- this might appear as a workplace scenario for L3/L4 candidates. But as a scenario for anyone who doesn’t work in a warehouse/fulfilment centre this doesn’t make sense.

”Which Amazon Leadership Principle do you resonate most with?”- The answer to this can’t be used as evidence to hire you or not. Just because a Leadership Principle resonates with you, it doesn’t mean you’re strong at it. Amazon hires based on the evidence provided of past performance.

”What would you do if you saw someone being unsafe at work?” -This might appear as a workplace scenario for L3/L4 candidates. But as a scenario for anyone who doesn’t work in a warehouse/fulfilment centre this doesn’t make sense.

”What would you do if somehow you misdirected 10,000 units of something?” -
This might appear as a workplace scenario for L3/L4 candidates. Or maybe a Vendor Manager. But as a scenario for anyone who doesn’t work with units of stock this doesn’t make sense.

”How would you improve Amazon’s website?” -Eeerrrrrr really??!! Where would you start answering this! The Amazon website is many thousands of pages. This question doesn’t relate to any specific Leadership Principle.

”You have 30 people working under you with 2 working indirect. Each employee can do 150 units/hour. Each work day has two 15 min breaks and one 30 min lunch. In a 5 day work week, how many total units can you complete?” - This might appear as a workplace scenario for L3/L4 candidates. But as a scenario for anyone who doesn’t work in a warehouse/fulfilment centre this doesn’t make sense.

”What is the most difficult situation you have ever faced in your life? How did you handle it?” -This is such a vague and unspecific question. The interviewer, who is allocated a specific set of Leadership Principles to test for, would have no way of predicting which, if any, Leadership Principle they would get insight on with a candidate’s response to this.

”How would you tell a customer what Wi-Fi is?” -As a skills question, realistically you can imagine this would be constrained only to the AWS division. But unless you are in a Sales or Technical role there, your ability to communicate technical products to customers seems a rather irrelevant area to explore in a time limited interview.

”You are Amazon and Samsung offers you 10,000 Samsung Galaxy S3s at a 34% discount. Is that a good deal?” -This might appear as a workplace scenario for a Vendor Manager. But as a scenario for anyone who doesn’t work with vendors this doesn’t make sense as a skills test.

”Design an online payment system.” –This one speaks for itself really. If you’re interviewing for any role other than UX Design, Technical Product Manager or Solutions Architect, this question doesn’t make sense.

”Should we sell private label cleaning products?”-This question is extremely unlikely to be asked of anyone not interviewing for the Consumer Private Brands Division.

”How would you introduce AWS in an elevator pitch?” -This question is unlikely to be asked of anyone not interviewing for AWS.

”Describe what Human Resource means to you.” -This question is unlikely to be asked of anyone not interviewing for HR.

”What is the angle between the hour hand and minute hand in an analogue clock?”- This one baffles me!!! Amazon interviewers are not trained to ask candidates trick questions.

“Do you know our CEO? How do you pronounce his name?” - Another baffler. I can’t imagine why this would be a good investment of time, to make it a most common question in Amazon interview.

“How would you solve problems if you were from Mars?” - Another baffler. I can't see how the answer to this tells an interviewer anything about the technical skills, or strength in Leadership Principles of the candidate.

”How do you detect whether or not a word is a palindrome?” -These just get weirder.......

“Are you willing to work on your feet for ten hours, four days a week?”- This speaks for itself. Only relevant for anyone working in a warehouse/fulfilment centre.

“Describe what happens in your browser as soon as you hit enter after writing a URL in the address bar.”- This would be a pointless question to ask anyone not interviewing for a tech role.

“How would you handle it if you discovered that your inventory levels were actually too high?” -This would be a pointless question to ask anyone not interviewing for a Vendor or In-Stock Manger role

“What do you like most about Amazon? What do you like least?” -This isn’t going to give the interviewer any evidence about your ability to raise the bar on the Leadership Principles or your technical skills.

“What steps do you take to make sure every customer you speak with is wowed?” -The majority of Amazonians will never speak directly to a Customer, so the answer to this won't be helpful in recruiting for the majority of roles in Amazon.

I’m not saying no one was ever asked these questions. But there is no way they are the most top/ most common questions asked at Amazon interviews.