Free question bank
The Amazon Interview Question Bank
Every type of question you'll face in an Amazon loop, organized in one place: all 16 Leadership Principles, questions by role, the process itself, and the background questions that open almost every interview.
By Leadership Principle (all 16)
One representative question per principle. Each links to a full guide with 5 to 6 sample questions, a STAR breakdown, and what interviewers listen for.
Customer Obsession
Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a customer.
Read the guideOwnership
Tell me about a time you took responsibility for a failure that wasn't entirely your fault.
Read the guideInvent and Simplify
Tell me about a time you found a simple solution to a problem everyone thought was complicated.
Read the guideAre Right, A Lot
Walk me through your most difficult judgment call with no obvious right answer.
Read the guideLearn and Be Curious
What have you learned in the last six months that made you meaningfully better at your job?
Read the guideHire and Develop the Best
Tell me about the best person you ever brought onto a team. How did you spot them?
Read the guideInsist on the Highest Standards
Tell me about a time you were unsatisfied with work that others considered done.
Read the guideThink Big
Tell me about the biggest idea you've ever proposed. What happened to it?
Read the guideBias for Action
Tell me about a time speed mattered more than precision. What did you do?
Read the guideFrugality
Tell me about a time you did more with less.
Read the guideEarn Trust
Tell me about a time you had to deliver bad news to a stakeholder.
Read the guideDive Deep
Tell me about a time a metric looked fine but something felt wrong. What did you find?
Read the guideHave Backbone; Disagree and Commit
Tell me about a time you disagreed with a decision from above and said so.
Read the guideDeliver Results
Tell me about your most significant professional achievement. Why that one?
Read the guideStrive to Be Earth's Best Employer
Tell me about a time you made your workplace safer, fairer, or more supportive.
Read the guideSuccess and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility
Tell me about a time you considered the wider impact of a decision beyond your team's metrics.
Read the guideBy role
Software engineers (SDE 1-3)
How is the SDE 2 behavioral bar different from SDE 1?
Read the guideArea Manager / Operations
Tell me about a time you coached an underperforming associate.
Read the guideProgram Manager / TPM
Your program is slipping two weeks before launch. Walk me through what you do.
Read the guideAWS and cloud-technical roles
Tell me about a time a production system behaved unexpectedly at scale.
Read the guideEconomist / Applied Economist
Walk me through the identification strategy in a piece of research you're proud of.
Read the guideBy interview stage
Background questions that open the loop
Not every question is a Leadership Principle probe. These come up in recruiter screens and as loop openers, and deserve a prepared answer even though they're not behavioral in the STAR sense.
- Tell me about yourself.
- Why do you want to work at Amazon?
- Why are you leaving your current role?
- What's your greatest weakness, and what are you doing about it?
- Where do you see yourself in five years?
- Is there anything in your resume you'd like to explain, like a gap or a short tenure?
- What do you know about the team or role you're interviewing for?
- Do you have any questions for me?
Wrapping up your own loop? See good questions to ask your interviewer when they turn it around on you.
Turn this bank into your story bank.
Create a free account to save which questions you've prepped, tag your STAR stories against all 16 Leadership Principles, and see your coverage gaps at a glance. The AI mock interviews that grill you on this exact bank unlock for $4.99 a month.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a downloadable PDF of Amazon interview questions?
This page is the full bank, organized so you can work through it section by section: all 16 Leadership Principles, role-specific questions, process questions, and the background questions that open most loops. Create a free account to save your progress and build your STAR story bank against every question here in one place.
How many questions should I actually prepare for?
Not 100 individual answers. Prepare 8 to 12 STAR stories that each flex across several Leadership Principles, and use this bank to check your coverage: can one of your stories answer each section below? Gaps in coverage are what you still need to write.
What's the difference between this page and the Leadership Principles guide?
The Leadership Principles guide explains what each of the 16 principles means and what interviewers listen for. This page is the index: one representative question per principle, per role, and per interview stage, linking out to a full guide for each. Use this page to navigate, and the linked guides to go deep.
Are these real Amazon interview questions?
These are real-style questions built from the same "Tell me about a time..." pattern every Amazon interviewer is trained to use, mapped to the specific Leadership Principle, role, or stage each one targets. Exact wording varies by interviewer, but the structure and the principle behind each question are exactly what you'll face.
Go deeper
Behavioral interview questions
What every behavioral question is really testing, and how to build answers that survive follow-ups.
Read the guideThe Loop, explained
How many interviews, how LPs get assigned, what happens in the debrief, and how to pace loop day.
Read the guideThe Bar Raiser round
Who the Bar Raiser is, why they hold a veto, and how to survive the deepest follow-ups in the loop.
Read the guide