Amazon Leadership Principle Questions
The following are typical Amazon questions listed by leadership principle. At the bottom we have listed the websites where we found the data.
1. Customer Obsession
Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
Sample Questions:
When you’re working with a large number of customers, it’s tricky to deliver excellent service to them all. How do you go about prioritizing your customers’ needs?
Give me an example of a time when you did not meet a client’s expectation. What happened, and how did you attempt to rectify the situation?
Who was your most difficult customer?
Tell the story of the last time you had to apologize to someone.
Can you tell me about a time you obsessed over giving very high quality service to a customer?
2. Ownership
Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job”.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult short term decision to make long term gains.
Tell me about a time when you had to work on a project with unclear responsibilities.
Tell me about a time when you had to leave a task unfinished.
Tell me about a time when you took on a task that went beyond your normal responsibilities.
Tell me about a time when you took it upon yourself to work on a challenging initiative.
3. Invent and Simplify
Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here”. As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you failed to simplify a process and what you would have done differently.
Tell me about a time when you innovated on something and it went wrong.
Tell me about a time when you changed a process at work through either an innovative new way or simplification.
Tell me about a time when you invented something.
Tell me about a time when you gave a simple solution to a complex problem.
4. Are Right, A Lot
Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you had to work with incomplete data or information.
Tell me about a time when you were wrong.
Tell me about a time when you had to use your judgment to solve a problem.
Tell me about a time when you incorporated a diverse set of perspectives into solving a problem.
Tell me about a time when you had your beliefs challenged and how you responded.
5. Learn and Be Curious
Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you solved a problem through just superior knowledge or observation.
Tell me about a time when you influenced a change by only asking questions.
Tell me about an experience you went through that changed your way of thinking.
Tell me about a time when your curiosity helped you make a smarter decision.
Tell me about the most important lesson you learned in the past year.
6. Hire and Develop the Best
Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you made a wrong hire. When did you figure it out and what did you do?
Tell me about a time when you mentored someone.
Tell me about the best hire your ever made.
What qualities do you look for most when hiring others?
Who is the most important person in your life and why?
7. Insist on the Highest Standards
Leaders have relentlessly high standards – many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when a team member didn’t meet your expectations on a project.
Tell me about a time when you couldn’t meet your own expectations on a project.
Tell me about a time when you raised the bar.
Tell me about a time when you motivated a team to go above and beyond.
Tell me about a time when you were dissatisfied with the quality of something at work and went out of your way to improve it.
8. Think Big
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you went way beyond the scope of the project and delivered.
Tell me about your proudest professional achievement.
Tell me about a time when you were disappointed because you didn’t think big enough.
Tell me about a time when your vision resulted in a big impact.
Tell me about a time when you had to make a bold and difficult decision.
9. Bias for Action
Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you took a calculated risk.
Tell me about a time you needed to get information from someone who wasn’t very responsive. What did you do?
Describe a time when you saw some problem and took the initiative to correct it rather than waiting for someone else to do it.
Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision with little data or information.
Tell me about a time when you made a decision too quickly and what you would have done differently.
10. Frugality
Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you had to work with limited time or resources.
Tell me about a time you had to rely on yourself to finish a task.
Tell me about a time where you turned down more resources to complete an assignment.
Tell me about a time when you beat out the competition with less resources.
Tell me about a time when you had to be frugal.
11. Earn Trust
Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you had to tell someone a harsh truth.
What would you do if you found out that your closest friend at work was stealing?
What is the quality you value least about yourself?
What do you do to gain the trust of your teammates?
Tell me about a time you had to speak up in a difficult environment.
12. Dive Deep
Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about something that you learnt recently in your role.
Give me two examples of when you did more than what was required in any job experience.
Tell me about the most complex problem you’ve ever worked on.
Tell me about a time when understanding the details of a situation helped you arrive to a solution.
Tell me about a time you utilized in depth data to come across a solution.
13. Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.
Sample Questions:
Tell me about a time when you had to step up and disagree with a team member’s approach.
If your direct manager was instructing you to do something you disagreed with, how would you handle it?
Tell me about a time when you did not accept the status quo.
Tell me about an unpopular decision of yours.
What do you believe that no one else does?
14. Deliver Results
Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.
Sample Questions:
Give me an example of a time when you were 75% of the way through a project, and you had to pivot strategy–how were you able to make that into a success story?
By providing an example, tell me when you have had to handle a variety of assignments. Describe the results.
What is the most difficult situation you have ever faced in your life? How did you handle it?
Tell me about a time you had too much on your plate to deal with and how you handled getting everything done.
Tell me about a time when everyone else on your team gave up on something but you pushed the team towards delivering a result.
. . .
In 2021, they added two principles that basically say we are nice. It was shortly after a lot of problems in the fulfillment centers during the first wave of Covid. While I haven’t found the specific list of questions for these, basically the answers will be don’t be a jerk and still exude the 14 aforementioned principles.
15. Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer
Leaders work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun.
Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they empowered? Are they ready for what’s next? Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their employees’ personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere.
Tell me about a time when you capitalized on an opportunity to help a co-worker or employee grow – how did you approach the situation, and what was the result?
Tell me about a time you worked to create a safer or more productive work environment without being prompted. What did you do?
Tell me an example of incorporating fun into your work-day.
Tell me about a time you worked to contribute to something bigger than yourself. What was the impact of that?
Tell me about a time you left something better than you found it – big or small.
Have you ever been faced with a moral dilemma in the workplace? How did you respond?
16. Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility
We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day.
We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them.
How do you think [a particular product/service] at Amazon can be improved?
What are the responsibilities associated with your position on a larger scale?
Tell me about a time you made a decision that went wrong. What was its impact?
Attributions/Footnotes
Here are some public blogs/articles with Amazon interview questions. We have picked the ones we thing you should focus on and grouped them by leadership principles above.
Interview Genie - A tone of interview advice specific to Amazon
ManagementConsulted.com - closest to real I found here grouped by principle
Dan Croitor - YouTube video on 157 questions. This guy does nothing but Amazon.
Interview Guy - seems more focused on fulfillment center than office. here
inc.com - again, seems more for warehouse workers. here
Glassdoor - here
Amazon Behavioral Interview Questions Guide First I found with good examples on the newest principles.
