How This Guide Will Help You Prepare For Amazon Interviews
This guide will help you prepare for behavioural interview questions at Amazon. It has a proven D1C Amazon Interview Method to prepare for your interview, which has worked for hundreds of candidates who have landed job offers with Amazon.
Note that we wrote this guide with the intent to help genuine candidates prepare. Therefore, we dont offer tips on manipulating Amazons interview process, and we encourage all candidates to avoid resources that try to do so.
Also, note that this guide covers only interview questions based on Amazons Leadership Principles. It does not cover coding, System Design or other functional preparation topics.
We are proud of what we have achieved with Day One Careers, and we stand firm in our aspiration to be the most credible source of guidance on how to ace Amazons behavioural interviews.
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Interviewer Debrief / Hiring Committee
After you finish your onsite interview rounds, your interviewers will come together to compare notes on your performance in what is called the interviewer debrief, or hiring committee.
Each interviewer will have written up a summary of their experience with you, including the questions and your answers, as well as a final recommendation .
The interviewers will convene with the hiring manager and the Bar Raiser in order to come to a decision. They will review not only the onsite interviewers feedback, but also your resume, your online or written assessments, and input from your screening rounds.
The Bar Raiser is the ultimate decision maker during this process. They have the ability to unilaterally veto the interviewers and hiring managers decision. However, this rarely happens. Instead, Bar Raisers and hiring managers typically strive to drive consensus and come to a collaborative final decision.
In most cases, the committee comes to a hire or no hire decision, which the recruiter will communicate to you. However, sometimes they decide they need more information about a specific competency. In this case they will schedule one to two more interview rounds for you to complete, then reconvene to make a decision.
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How To Answer Amazon Product Manager Interview Questions
Contrary to the popular belief, Amazon likes to prepare its interviewees beforehand. Under its Lets prepare for your interview section Amazon shares some key details about the company, its leadership principles, behavioral and technical interview tips, answer formats, and much more.
One of the Amazon-approved techniques to answer questions in Amazon interviews is the STAR method.
The STAR method would prove beneficial while answering design, analytical, and technical PM interview questions.
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Your Collaboration Interviewer Is Looking To See:
- How will you be able to handle conflict? Will you respectfully challenge decisions or passively follow?
- Can you create excitement and rally a team behind a shared vision? Are you willing to adapt your roadmap to changing market conditions?
- Did you come across as a humble team player? Can you earn the trust of your team members?
- Imagine an engineer on your team wasn’t meeting expectations. How would you proceed?
- Tell me about a time when you earned the trust of a person or group?
- Tell me about a time you failed. How did you handle it?
- Do you work well independently?
- What is an example of a time when you had to take a short-term loss hoping to get a long-term gain? Did it work?
Your Customer Obsession Interviewer Will Be Looking For:
- Did you evaluate the product from the lens of a user, not just a PM?
- Did you propose creative, interesting ideas? Is your plan feasible?
- When explaining how to improve a product, did you talk about the companyâs mission and goals and how the product fits in?
- Did you have a plan to make sure that customer is satisfied? How will you measure this? Will this affect the roadmap?
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Do You Have Experience With Xyz Methodologies
Developing a new product from scratch whether its a lightweight B2C SaaS or a comprehensive suite for business managers takes time.
But product teams dont have all the time in the world. There are deadlines to meet and competitors to beat.
To keep up with all of those challenges and ensure the products success, people have come up with different methodologies over the years.
The most widely recognized is the agile methodology.
To test the candidates technical know-how and level of hands-on experience, a recruiter might ask if they have ample experience with any of the methodologies.
How To Prepare For An Amazon Product Manager Interview
| Kenton Kivestu, ex-Google, ex-BCG, Founder at RocketBlocks |
Interview structure | Leadership principles | Bar raiser | Final advice
Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, is a famously principled leader.
Ask any Amazon employee and you’ll hear plenty of anecdotes about rules and principles. The “two pizza” rule, the infamous pre-written product release briefs and a cheap door for a desk are just a few of many examples.
Thus, it should come as no surprise that when it comes to hiring product managers, the future leaders of the company, that Amazon interviews focus heavily on assessing candidates against Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles.
In this RocketBlocks post, we sit down with Abhi Tiwari, a Director of Product Management leading the Fulfillment by Amazon group, to discuss how product manager interviews at Amazon are structured and what key traits interviewers want to see from PM candidates.
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Additional Personal Product Manager Interview Questions
| Tell us about yourself. |
| What aspects of the product management process excite you? |
| Why should we hire you? |
| Why do you want to work at our company? |
| What do you do for fun? |
| Where do you see your career in five years? |
| To be successful in a product management role, what do you need from your manager? |
| As a Product Manager, how do you define success? |
| Please tell us about the best idea youve ever had as a Product Manager? How about the worst? |
| What interests you about a product management role? |
| What is your top quality as a Product Manager? |
Tell Me About A Recent Experiment You Conducted As A Pm
I want to hear how the candidate presents the context of the experiment, how they rolled it out, what they measured, learned, and how they used the results to build a better product.
This question is usually a trigger for a great conversation and also helps me assess their current maturity towards the empowered product team model.
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What Can You Expect In This Round
This is the most complex of all the rounds in the Amazon technical program manager interview process. Expect questions divided into technical , program management, and behavioral.
Compared to other companies, where you can expect much more twisted questions, clearing Amazonâs interview process can be relatively simple because it tends to follow a pattern. All you need to do is give equal importance to the behavioral questions as to technical and program management questions.
Some resources to help you with your prep:
What Happens Behind The Scenes
Your recruiter is leading the process and taking you from one stage to the next. Here’s what happens at each of the stages described above:
- After the phone screens, your recruiter decides to move you to the onsite or not, depending on how well you’ve done up to that point
- After the onsite, each interviewer files their notes into the internal system, grades you and makes a hiring recommendation
- The “Debrief” brings all your interviewers together and is led by the Bar Raiser, who is usually the most experienced interviewer and is also not part of the hiring team. The Bar Raiser will try to guide the group towards a hiring decision. It’s rare, but they can also veto hiring even if all other interviewers want to hire you.
- You get an offer. If everything goes well, the recruiter will then give you an offer, usually within a week of the onsite but it can sometimes take longer
It’s also important to note that recruiters and people who refer you have little influence on the overall process. They can help you get an interview at the beginning, but that’s about it.
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What Interviews To Expect
Whats the Amazon Technical Program Manager interview process and timeline? It takes takes four to eight weeks and follows the steps below. Note that the process at AWS follows similar steps.
Lets look at each of these steps in more detail below:
1.1.1 Recruiter phone screen
In most cases, youll start your interview process with Amazon by talking to a Recruiter on the phone. They are looking to confirm that youve got a chance of getting the job at all, so be prepared to explain your background and why youre a good fit at Amazon.
You should expect typical behavioral and resume questions like, Tell me about yourself, , or Tell me about your current day to day as a Technical Program Manager. When answering even the most common interview questions, be sure to express your understanding of .
1.1.2 TPM phone screen
If youve passed the HR screen, youll be invited to one or two TPM phone screens. This step is called a phone screen, but it sometimes takes place over video chat using Amazon Chime which is the companys video conferencing product.
Each interview will last 45 to 60 minutes. Youll speak to a TPM peer or a potential manager and theyll ask you a mix of system design and behavioral questions.
1.1.3 Amazon writing exercise
How To Answer Amazoninterview Questions
While you could just jump into the fray, memorize a few Amazon interview questions and be done with it thats not the best way to go about things.
Sure, you might be ready to handle specific questions. But, if something unexpected comes up, you might be caught flatfooted. No one wants that.
Instead, you need to take a different path. Think of it this way how does a brave knight ensure they come out ahead? By honing their skills and developing a winning strategy, thats how.
With the right techniques and overall strategy, you can face off against unanticipated questions. Youll be able to parry any potential blows and delivering some impressive strikes yourself.
Now, exactly how you need to prepare can and will be a bit nuanced. After all, there is a slew of positions at Amazon, and each one involves something different. If you want to get ready for your Amazon interview, then you need to take that into account.
How do you make sure youre ready for YOUR Amazon interview? Start by reading the job description for the position. In that handful of paragraphs, youll find a ton of specific, actionable information about what the hiring manager is looking for in a perfect candidate.
For example, the list of must-have skills you find on most job descriptions reflects their priorities. Those keywords or qualities you see over and over? Yeah, those fall into that category, too.
MIKES TIP:
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Name Some People Or Products Who Influence Your Approach To Product Design Management
This question can help interviewers learn more about your training and inspiration in product design management. Consider making a written or mental list of your inspiration before the interview to reference, especially if you have multiple influencers.
Example:My first supervisor at my first product design job still influences how I run a team today. She was frequent and clear in her communications and always had the time to schedule individual meetings for members that had questions. She provided only constructive criticism and made the office a welcoming place to visit and a safe place to share new ideas. I try to model my supervisory practices after her.
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How Do You Know If A Product Has An Exceptional Design
This question tests your technical and product managers content knowledge. Interviewers are looking to understand what you know about the design process and quality assurance of a product. To answer, consider using an example of an actual product youve designed or worked on that had an excellent design and explain your criteria for determining if a product is good.
Example:Last month, my team finished a design for a new handheld vacuum cleaner. The product was innovative, especially for pet owners, because it could clean furniture the same way a large vacuum cleans the floor. The design was also reliable, with the prototype working as promised in nine of 10 tests. According to the focus group tests, it was also easy to use and convenient to store, even for people in apartments and other small spaces.
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Prepare For Amazon Interviews And Tests For Senior Managers
Do you wish to become a member of Amazon senior management? Getting into the company is a real challenge, especially when it comes to senior managerial positions. Outperform your competition with the help of the info and preparation resources offered on this page.
Includes the latest numerical Verify G+ Interactive SHL tests Amazon uses on their MGMT assessments.
This pack is dedicated to Amazon manager candidates. The Amazon manager interview is challenging as it incorporates a variety of aptitude tests, interviews, and other assessments. The senior management interview questions differ from regular assessments as you should demonstrate that you are an experienced professional. JobTestPrep’s Senior Manager Amazon Pack is designed for experienced hire, start practising today and land your desired position.
How Will An Amazon Interview Assess My Performance Against 16 Leadership Principles
Every interview question will be testing at least one LP , which is why if you research the Internet well enough, you can collect the most frequently asked LP questions and map them against each LP. Weve also pulled together a to give you a sense of some of the most frequently asked themes. Use this list exercise to get a flavour of what the questions may sound like but do not make this the central part of your Amazon interview preparation.
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Wrapping Up And Next Steps
Many people want to break into technical program management. The role of a TPM is one that will continue to grow in demand as the need for cross-team and cross-functional collaboration increases. Landing a TPM role will require experience and preparation, but were here to help! If you want to get started preparing for your TPM interview, I highly recommend checking out Hacking the TPM Interview.
This course was written by an experienced TPM who has worked with multiple FAANG companies. Youll learn about what it takes to pass the difficult TPM interview, as well as get some practical advice on how to thrive in the role.
Happy learning!
Amazon Product Manager Interview Questions Insaid Blog
Tell me about a time you received constructive feedback from. You can check out amazon product manager interview questions. How would you measure the success of aws for smes? 4 interview, 45 min long, 15 min.
How would you measure the success of aws for smes? Everything from amazon prime, amazon web services , and kindle require multiple product managers. You can check out amazon product manager interview questions. Can you tell me about a time. A framework for answering this amazon product strategy question.
258 amazon product manager interview questions and 228 interview reviews. List of product manager interview questions: All interview questions are submitted by recent amazon product. We will discuss amazon product manager interview questions here in this article for your next interview. Is launching a new and.
List of product manager interview questions: Can you tell me about a time. Our question bank has 10000+ interview questions and growing, 132 of which are for amazon product manager interviews. How would you measure the success of aws for smes? 258 amazon product manager interview questions and 228 interview reviews.
Is launching a new and. Can you tell me about a time. Selling live plants on amazon to a: How would you measure the success of aws for smes? In any case, you can expect the following questions during your amazon product manager interview.
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Learn About Amazons Culture
Most candidates fail to do this. But before investing tens of hours preparing for an interview at Amazon, you should take some time to make sure it’s actually the right company for you.
Amazon is prestigious and it’s tempting to assume that you should apply, without considering things more carefully. But, it’s important to remember that the prestige of a job won’t make you happy in your day-to-day work. It’s the type of work and the people you work with that will.
If you know anyone who works at Amazon or used to work there, as a program manager or in another role, talk to them to understand what the culture is like. The leadership principles we discussed above can give you a sense of what to expect, but there’s no replacement for a conversation with an insider. Finally, we would also recommend reading the following resources:
