Preparing For An Amazon Interview

Automated Interviewing With Coding Challenges

Unlike the , where the initial assessment is a phone screen, Amazon expands this assessment to sometimes include a coding challenge.

Some interviewers prefer this method, as the performance anxiety of interacting with another person is absent, and the only requirement on your end is to write code that executes correctly and efficiently.

This is also positive for Amazon, as they do not need to expend resources on conducting 30-45 minute interviews with candidates. Furthermore, they can also expand their reach substantially, as this process is somewhat automated.

Oftentimes, these coding challenges are driven through an engine similar to that of HackerRank, where your code is automatically analyzed for syntactic correctness, efficiency, and correctness for the task at hand. This gives a better signal to the interviewee about how well they are performing during the interview itself.

While all of these coding assessments will have instructions, they will often mimic those of HackerRank insofar as actually using the same submission and judging criteria.

Therefore, it is most likely a good idea to play around with the HackerRank interface, practicing a few problems to ensure that you do not get tripped up on the interface itself. This way, you can then just focus on solving the problem.

More Amazon Interview Questions

Here are 40 more Amazon interview questions you may encounter:

Questions Asked At Amazon Phone Interview:

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Can You Describe Yourmost Difficult Customer And How You Were Able To Handle Their Needs

Amazon rose to greatness partially because of its commitment to customer service. It made the shopping experience better, even when something didnt go right.

If the job is even remotely customer-facing, you should be ready for this question. Dealing with a disgruntled customer isnt easy, and Amazon wants to know that youre up to the challenge.

EXAMPLE ANSWER:

In my previous role, a customer was upset that a product they ordered was put on backorder unexpectedly after they made their purchase. They needed a functional version of the item as quickly as possible, and the possibility that that wouldnt happen increased their stress levels, leaving them just shy of hostile. To resolve their issue, I began by listening to their concern, rephrasing what was being shared, and asking clarifying questions to ensure my full understanding. I then reassured them that Id work with them to find a solution. Together, we discussed alternative products that were in stock that could meet their needs. As soon as a substitute was identified, we canceled the old order and initiated the new one. I applied a free shipping upgrade to expedite delivery, ensuring it would arrive before the customers deadline. In the end, they were fully satisfied with the solution.

What Are The Top Tips To Help Prepare For Amazon Interviews

Go beyond the surface and try to unearth information about Amazon’s Leadership Principles that would give you an idea of why they are what they are. You can do this by reading The Everything Store by Brad Stone. You can watch YouTube interviews and lectures of Amazon’s S-team . The more you understand what drives the LPs, the more you will be comfortable in unexpected situations .

Research the most frequently asked Amazon interview questions and map them against Leadership Principles . Do not overdo this. Use it to get a better feel for what behaviours Amazon expects candidates to demonstrate against each LP. Note that there is no way to tell if the questions from the Internet are authentic.

Prepare 23 stories about situations from your professional life that best demonstrate behaviours mentioned in each question. Prepare a cheat sheet with a table listing all LPs and situation prompts against each LP. Be sure to have a column with Key Results and another for Lessons Learned you’ll need them later.

Note you can re-use stories if you think that they can work for more than one LP, but avoid doing it more than twice.

For recent grads your extracurricular activities, not your classwork, is your treasure chest. Lean into that part of your academics for stories and situations .

Always make sure that you have outcomes and results for every situation. These have to be real. If you don’t have results that you can measure, how would you know if you were successful?

PRACTICE!

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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.

Screening Call With Hr Or Internal Recruiter

This lasts about 45 minutes to 1 hour. HR or the recruiter will spend most of the time asking questions about your career. They will usually start in chronological order from your ï¬rst job to your most recent position. Youâre expected to answer questions in the

Itâs unlikely youâll get too much feedback during that conversation, and it might seem more âinformationalâ or casual â but it hardly ever is. Job-seekers tend to come out of the conversation feeling good, which is strange because you have no indication of whether or not you made it to the next round! I believe the reason for this is because the recruiter/HR will let people talk most of the time without interrupting them. People love to talk but donât realize whether or not theyâre saying the right things. Hereâs the best way to approach this initial call and to make sure you are saying right things: 1) Practice talking about your career from start to ï¬nish. There will inevitably be pieces youâve forgotten, including the reasons youâve left certain jobs and so forth.

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Amazon Interview Questions On Systems Design

Your Amazon interview preparation plan is incomplete without dedicating at least 1-2 weeks to thoroughly cover concepts in distributed systems design.

Following are the important design concepts to cover, followed by some sample systems design interview questions.

• Systems design case studies

Following are some sample Amazon interview questions on distributed systems design:

How To Prepare For An Interview In One Month

People always asked us what I should do to prepare for an interview within several weeks. This post is not teaching you any sort of shortcuts or tricks that let you get offers without efforts, instead we want to help you only focus on things that have huge impact on your preparation, thus compress your preparation time within a month. In addition well recommend only one or two resources in each section since theres no need for you to check a 300 page book or tens of websites.

Pareto principle teaches us that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the efforts, in other words majority of peoples preparation work only have trivial effects on their interview performance. The key to be efficient in preparation is not getting any super secret resources, instead is by eliminating useless effort and be more focused on those 20% work.

After interviewing a lot of Gainlo interviewers, its quite clear that certain preparation patterns/hacks do exist and they can definitely be compressed into weeks. In fact, many of them got their job offers only within 3 weeks preparation. Lets see how those guys including me are using this model and how you can do the same.

Day 0: Make concrete timeline and stick to it

I know its gonna be hard. For student, you may have lots of course work to do. And for employees, you just cant do it during work hour. But you should always figure out some time EVERYDAY. No time is no excuse.

Stage 1: Basic knowledge review

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Leadership Skills & Professional Development

Even if this is your first leadership role, think about leadership opportunities youve had in previous roles. When asked about your past leaders , make sure you answer diplomatically and respectfully.

• Tell me about a calculated risk that youve taken regarding your career.

• Tell me about a time when you had to learn a new skill for work.

• Tell me about a time you were under a lot of pressure.

• Tell me about a situation where you directly impacted customer satisfaction.

• Tell me about a time when you had to motivate an employee or colleague.

• Tell me about a time when you’ve been in a business situation that was ethically questionable.

• Talk about a time when you had to adapt to big changes at work.

• Tell me about a time when you were asked to perform a task or spearhead an initiative that went against your values.

• Tell me about the most exciting and energizing aspect of your current or most recent position.

• Tell me about a time you used your leadership skills to help your team deal with a difficult challenge.

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 driving 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.

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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.

Practice questions on being right, a lot.

• Tell me about a time when you had to convince team members on something you proposed.

Amazon is known for its customer-centric culture, and part of that is due to the company’s focus on speed and agility. Amazon expects its employees to be able to make decisions quickly and efficiently, without getting bogged down in details or second-guessing themselves.

This can be a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to show that you’re capable of taking risks and thinking on your feet.

Top 35 Amazon Interview Questions

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos once said:

Id rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person.

Yikes, right?

If youre about to head into an Amazon interview, that might legitimately be the most intimidating statement ever.

Having said that, this scary quote from scary Jeff doesnt mean Amazon wants you to fail. Instead, it simply means they only want to hire people who prove themselves worthy.

Want to make sure you make the cut?

Well, with a bit of preparation , its possible.

So, grab your broadsword, don your plate armor, and lets get ready for battle! )

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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. We’ve 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.

Top 3 Amazon Interviewquestions

Alright,lets take stock. Right now, you have a winning strategy for answering Amazoninterview questions. Thats a great foundation.

But, havingclear examples can also help. It lets you review questions you may face and seehow to put the tips above to work. We arent going to leave you hanging.

Here are thetop 3 Amazon interview questions you could encounter when meeting with thehiring manager, along with tips for answering them.

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You Should Take This Course If

You are an undergraduate student in computer science or related computing field who wants to apply for technical internships or jobs

You could use the confidence boost and practice that will help you ace technical interviews now and in your future career

You can commit to attending classes during the required days/times plus completing assignments outside of class time

Technical And Skills Questions

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Practice At Least Two Problems A Day

The fact is that you get better at problem-solving only with practice. Before the on-site interview, make sure to solve at least 250 problems to give yourself a good chance at cracking the interview.

Remember, youâll have to beat stiff competition to come out on top. The more problems you practice, the better your chances of solving them during the actual interviews.

You can use popular coding platforms to give yourself a wider exposure to problems and solution patterns.

Learn Amazons Star Technique

The STAR technique is a structured method to respond to a behavioral question through a real-life experience. Recruiters at Amazon use this technique to analyze a candidate’s skills, experience, and problem-solving abilities. Therefore, the crux of this technique is to determine if you are chalked out for the job role.

Here is a rundown on the STAR technique:

Situation

First, you must describe the situation that you faced or the task that you accomplished. Remember to provide enough details for your interviewer to grasp the complexities of the said situation. You can give an example from a previous job, volunteer activity, group project, or another relevant event. The key here is to be as specific as possible.

Task

Next, elucidate on the goal that you aimed to achieve. Describe your responsibility in the given situation. Perhaps you resolved a conflict with a co-worker or completed a project within a stringent deadline â make sure you highlight such an experience.

Action

Here, describe the steps you took to address the situation you described above. What was your particular contribution or the unique approach you employed to solve the problem? Frame your answer with an appropriate amount of detail.

Result

Lastly, explain the outcomes or results generated by your action. Try to emphasize the goal accomplished and the lessons you learned on the way. Moreover, provide examples using data or metrics if applicable.

Tips to Excel at the STAR Technique

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