Amazon is unusually open about how it judges candidates. Its hiring pages say that "all candidates are evaluated through the lens of" its Leadership Principles. The best preparation, it says, is to reflect on how you have shown them in your past experience. This guide explains each of the 16 principles in plain language, shows how Amazon says it asks about them, and gives you a method to turn your own work or college experience into honest, specific stories.
Everything quoted below comes from Amazon's official Leadership Principles page and its interview loop guidance on amazon.jobs, checked in October 2026. The practice prompts are illustrative. They are not a list of questions Amazon has confirmed it asks.
How Amazon says it uses the principles in interviews
From the interview loop page:
- Behavioural questions. Interviews "focus on behavioral-based questions", meaning real examples from your past. Amazon says it avoids brain teasers "because they don't reliably predict success."
- Example questions Amazon itself lists include: "Describe a time when you took a risk, made a mistake, or failed. What happened, and what did you learn from it?" and "How have you used data to develop a strategy or make a decision?"
- What a complete answer contains. Context (what was going on and your role), task, actions (what you specifically did), and outcome, including what you learned. Amazon offers STAR as one way to structure answers, "but it's not the only way."
- Use "I", not "we". Amazon asks you to focus on your individual contribution even in team work, and to back results with numbers where you have them.
- Failure stories count. "Not every story has to be a success… What matters is what you learned and how you grew."
- Who you'll meet. You'll likely meet "two to seven people", which may include a Bar Raiser, described as "someone from another team focused on hiring quality". Each conversation lasts around 45 minutes to an hour.
- Writing samples. Some roles ask for one, because Amazon teams write narrative memos of one to six pages instead of slide decks.
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Buy this eBook The 16 Leadership Principles in plain language
The "official gist" column paraphrases Amazon's own wording. The other two columns are preparation suggestions, not Amazon's criteria.
| Principle | Official gist | Evidence to look for in your own past | Illustrative practice prompt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer Obsession | Start with the customer and work backwards; earn and keep trust | A decision you changed after listening to a user | Tell me about a time you put a user's need ahead of an easier option |
| Ownership | Think long term; act for the whole company; never say "that's not my job" | A problem outside your remit that you fixed | Describe something you took on that nobody assigned to you |
| Invent and Simplify | Expect innovation; always find ways to simplify | A process you made shorter or clearer | Tell me about a time you simplified something complicated |
| Are Right, A Lot | Strong judgement; seek diverse views and try to disconfirm your beliefs | A call you made with incomplete data, and how you tested it | Describe a decision where you changed your mind |
| Learn and Be Curious | Never done learning; explore new possibilities | A skill you taught yourself because a task needed it | What did you learn recently, and how did you use it? |
| Hire and Develop the Best | Raise the bar with every hire; coach others | Mentoring a junior, or onboarding a teammate | Tell me about someone you helped improve |
| Insist on the Highest Standards | Relentlessly high standards; fix problems so they stay fixed | A defect you traced to its root cause | Describe a time you refused to ship something that wasn't ready |
| Think Big | Create and communicate a bold direction | A proposal bigger than your immediate task | Tell me about an idea you pushed beyond its original scope |
| Bias for Action | Speed matters; many decisions are reversible; calculated risk | Acting without waiting for full certainty | Describe a time you made a quick decision with limited information |
| Frugality | Accomplish more with less; constraints breed resourcefulness | Delivering with a tight budget, team or timeline | Tell me about getting a result without the resources you wanted |
| Earn Trust | Listen, speak candidly, be vocally self-critical | Admitting your own error to a team or client | Describe a time you had to deliver bad news |
| Dive Deep | Stay connected to details; be sceptical when metrics and anecdotes differ | Investigating a number that didn't look right | Tell me about a problem you solved by digging into data |
| Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit | Respectfully challenge decisions, then commit fully once decided | Disagreeing with a senior person, then supporting the decision | Describe a time you disagreed with your manager |
| Deliver Results | Focus on key inputs; deliver with quality and on time despite setbacks | A deadline met despite a setback | Tell me about your hardest deadline |
| Strive to be Earth's Best Employer | Create a safer, more productive, more diverse and just workplace; lead with empathy | Improving how a team worked for its members | Describe how you supported a colleague's growth |
| Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility | Be humble about the secondary effects of actions; leave things better | Considering the wider impact of a decision | Tell me about a time you considered effects beyond your immediate goal |
Worked example: one experience, three stories
This scenario is illustrative. Say you are a final-year engineering student in Pune who built a canteen pre-ordering web app for your college with three classmates.
- Dive Deep. Orders dropped on Mondays. You checked the server logs and found that the menu-upload job failed when the canteen sent the menu after 9 a.m. You moved the job and added an alert. Result to quote: only numbers you actually recorded, such as how many Mondays the failure affected.
- Earn Trust. You had promised the canteen manager a feature by a date and missed it. You told him early, explained why, and gave a new date that you then met.
- Ownership. No one was responsible for backups. You set up a daily database export after a teammate accidentally deleted the menu table.
One project gives you three distinct answers, each with your own actions at the centre. That is why a story bank works better than memorising one "perfect" answer for each principle.
Build your story bank in four steps
- List eight to ten real experiences from work, internships, college projects, volunteering or family responsibilities. Amazon's own guidance mentions "working (or studying or volunteering)" when it describes setting the scene.
- Map each experience to two or three principles using the table above. Aim to cover every principle at least once, and add extra stories for the principles that match the main duties in your job description.
- Write each story in four short lines: situation, task, your actions, and the result plus what you learned. Add data only where you can show where the number came from.
- Rehearse aloud and time yourself. Amazon suggests pausing after your answer to ask whether the interviewer wants more context. Practise a 90-second version you can expand.
Copy this template for each story:
| Field | Your notes |
|---|---|
| Principles it shows | |
| Situation (one line) | |
| Task (your responsibility) | |
| Actions (three verbs starting with "I…") | |
| Result (numbers you can verify) | |
| What you learned or would change | |
| Likely follow-up question |
The last row matters. Interviewers often ask "what would you do differently?" or "how did you know it worked?" Prepare those answers in advance.
Mistakes that weaken Leadership Principle answers
- Reciting the principle. Saying "I am customer-obsessed" proves nothing. Tell the story and let the interviewer map it.
- Hiding behind "we". Amazon explicitly asks for your individual actions.
- Inventing numbers. Amazon's guidance says "keep it honest" and that it values authenticity and self-awareness. Follow-up questions quickly expose made-up metrics.
- Reusing one story for everything. Amazon recommends having "a few examples ready that highlight different strengths, including times you've taken risks, succeeded, failed, and grown."
- Skipping the failure story. Prepare at least one genuine mistake with a clear lesson.
For more help structuring answers, see our STAR method interview guide and our guide to building a behavioural interview example portfolio.
Before your interview
- Re-read the official principle texts. Use the wording on Amazon's own page, not a paraphrase from a forum.
- Check your role's prep page under Amazon's How We Hire section. It has separate pages for SDE, data, product and other roles, including university hiring.
- For remote interviews, Amazon says you will use Zoom or Amazon Chime. Watch your email for meeting details from your recruiting contact.
- Prepare a genuine answer to "Why Amazon?", which the interview loop page calls a common question.