Questions to Ask Your Amazon Interviewer

Almost every Amazon interview ends the same way: "Do you have any questions for me?" It's easy to treat this as a formality after 45 minutes of being questioned yourself, but it's a small, real opportunity, both to gather information that actually helps you decide on an offer, and to leave a sharper final impression than a generic "no, I think you covered everything."

This guide organizes good questions by who's across the table, and covers the ones worth avoiding.

Why this moment is worth preparing for

Amazon interviewers don't score your closing question as a formal Leadership Principle, but experienced interviewers notice the difference between a candidate who's genuinely curious about the team and the work, and one who's mentally already checked out. A specific, well-targeted question is a small but free signal of engagement, roughly the interview equivalent of Learn and Be Curious in action.

It's also simply useful. You're evaluating Amazon as much as they're evaluating you, and the end of each interview is your best window into what the actual day-to-day is like for the team you might join.

Questions for your hiring manager

• What does success look like for this role in the first six months?
• How does this team's work connect to the org's broader goals this year?
• What's the biggest challenge the team is facing right now?
• How do you personally like to give and receive feedback?

Questions for a peer or team-member interviewer

• What's a project you've worked on here that you're genuinely proud of?
• What does a typical week actually look like on this team?
• What's something about working here that surprised you after you joined?
• How does the team handle disagreement about technical or process decisions?

Questions for the Bar Raiser or a cross-team interviewer

Bar Raisers often come from a completely different part of the org, which makes them a good source for questions about Amazon broadly rather than your specific team. See how the Bar Raiser round works if you're not sure who this is in your loop.

• How have you seen the Leadership Principles actually show up in day-to-day decisions, beyond the interview?
• What's changed about how Amazon operates since you joined?
• What separates candidates who thrive here from ones who struggle, in your experience?

Questions to avoid in the loop

Save these for your recruiter instead of a loop interviewer:

• Compensation, level, or equity questions. Interviewers are focused on their Leadership Principle evaluation, and this reads as misplaced priority during their limited time.
• "Do you think I did well?" Interviewers won't and often can't answer honestly mid-loop, and it puts them in an awkward spot.
• Anything answerable with a two-minute search of Amazon's public site. It signals you didn't prepare.

A few tactical notes

Don't ask the identical question to every interviewer. Interviewers compare notes in the debrief, and a rehearsed, repeated question reads as less genuine than one tailored to each person. Prepare 6 to 8 questions total so you have backups when earlier interviewers already answer some of them naturally during the conversation, but plan to ask only 1 or 2 per round given the limited time.

One underused option: ask about the Leadership Principle that interviewer's questions seemed to lean on. If someone spent the round probing Dive Deep, asking "what does insisting on deep detail actually look like on this team day to day" shows you were paying attention to more than just answering.

Preparing sharp closing questions is a small piece of a much bigger loop. For the full plan on stories, principles, and delivery, see the Amazon interview preparation guide, or practice the whole loop, opening question through closing question, with Bar Raiser AI's adaptive voice mock interviews.