I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Amazon
Interview
Interview process was nothing complex with mostly Amazon leadership principle questions. Interview process is also long and questions don’t focus on skills but more leadership principles.
The way they handled the offer was atrocious. I had told my recruiter what my expected salary was. Went through the interview process and was told I had gotten the job and someone would reach out with the offer. Fast forward a day and someone reaches out and lets me know that I actually got a lower job than the one I interviewed for. They proceeded to offer me a job with 30% less compensation than what my salary expectation was. To lowball someone that low is almost insulting. Their base salary was more in line with someone coming out of college in an extremely expensive city. The position was also a “Leadership” position, required an extensive amount of travel as well as working nights and weekends. Not sure if there was a lapse in communication or if they thought the interviewer was desperate and would accept a low offer.
Recruiters and hiring managers need to do better to make sure this doesn’t happen. This was a really negative experience as I was excited to join Amazon before being given an extremely low offer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time you made a hard decision to sacrifice short term gain for a longer-term goal
The interview process includes a SQL test, an initial recruiter call, and a final five-round loop featuring technical questions and discussions focused on Amazon leadership principles with different team members.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They asked a key question focused on both technical depth and culture fit: how you apply your skills to solve real problems, along with examples demonstrating alignment with Amazon’s leadership principles.
I applied online. I interviewed at Amazon (Seattle, WA)
Interview
Interviewed for Business Analyst role at Amazon and honestly the process felt exhausting and impersonal.
The interviewers seemed far more focused on checking boxes against the 14 Leadership Principles than actually understanding the candidate or having a genuine conversation. Almost every question was another version of a STAR behavioral scenario, even when it barely related to the actual role.
The process felt extremely rehearsed and rigid. There was little effort to make the candidate feel comfortable or valued, and it often felt like they had already decided the outcome before the interview even started.
Technical and analytical depth barely mattered compared to how perfectly you could package stories into Amazon’s preferred format. If you don’t have polished STAR stories memorized for every possible situation, the process can feel unnecessarily difficult and draining.
Overall, one of the most mentally exhausting interview experiences I’ve had.
The basic STAR format, but the team was not clear about what they were looking for. The recruiter was not very responsive and took a long time to schedule the calls