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Amazon Behavioral Interview Questions: 60 by Principle

Every Amazon interview, from the phone screen to the last round of the loop, carries behavioral questions. They are not a warm-up before the technical part. Each one is graded against a specific leadership principle, written up, and read in the debrief where the hiring decision is made. A strong coding round does not rescue a weak answer about a missed deadline.

This post lists sixty questions sorted by principle, so you can see what each interviewer is listening for and build stories that cover several principles at once. It also covers the questions that come up most and the answer shape Amazon expects.

How Amazon behavioral interviews work

Interviewers at Amazon do not pick questions at random. Before the loop, each interviewer is assigned two or three leadership principles to assess (the exact pattern varies by team, but two or three is what candidates and former interviewers consistently describe). They open with a question aimed at one principle, then follow up until they can write a verdict: what you personally did, what the result was, and what you would change.

Three things follow from that:

Follow-ups are the real interview. The opening question is generic; the fourth question is where you are judged.
Your stories are shared. Interviewers write up what you said, and the debrief compares notes. Telling the same story twice is fine; telling it differently is not.
One interviewer, the Bar Raiser, comes from outside the hiring team to keep the standard above the current average. Their follow-ups go deeper.

For the full loop, from the online assessment to the offer, read the Amazon interview process guide. For what each principle means, the Amazon leadership principles guide covers all sixteen.

60 Amazon behavioral interview questions by leadership principle

Each principle below lists three or four questions and one line on what the interviewer is listening for. The full guide for each principle has the meaning, workplace examples, and a sample STAR answer.

Customer Obsession

Listening for: whether you start from the customer's problem or from your own solution, and whether you can name a time the customer's interest cost you something.

Tell me about a time you went out of your way to help a customer.
Describe a decision where the customer's interest and the business's interest pulled in different directions.
Tell me about a time you had to say no to a customer request. How did you decide?
How do you find out what your customers actually need, rather than what they say they want?

Full guide: Customer Obsession interview questions

Ownership

Listening for: whether you acted beyond your job description and stayed with a problem after it stopped being convenient.

Tell me about a time you took on something that was not your responsibility.
Describe a project where you made a long-term decision at a short-term cost.
Tell me about a time you saw a problem nobody owned. What did you do?
Give me an example of a commitment you made that you could not keep.

Full guide: Ownership interview questions

Invent and Simplify

Listening for: a real simplification with a measurable effect, not an abstract fondness for innovation.

Tell me about a process you simplified. What did you remove and what happened?
Describe the most innovative thing you have built. Why was it needed?
Tell me about a time an idea of yours was misunderstood or rejected at first.
When did you borrow an idea from outside your team or company?

Full guide: Invent and Simplify interview questions

Are Right, A Lot

Listening for: judgment under uncertainty, and whether you actively look for evidence that you are wrong.

Tell me about a decision you made with incomplete information. How did you decide?
Describe a time you were wrong. How did you find out and what did you do?
Tell me about a time you changed your mind because of someone else's data.
How do you know when a decision is good enough to act on?

Full guide: Are Right, A Lot interview questions

Learn and Be Curious

Listening for: concrete evidence that you learn on your own initiative and apply it.

Tell me about something you taught yourself recently. Why, and what did you do with it?
Describe a time curiosity led you somewhere useful for your team.
What is something you learned from a failure that changed how you work?

Full guide: Learn and Be Curious interview questions

Hire and Develop the Best

Listening for: whether you take other people's growth seriously, and whether you can give hard feedback.

Tell me about someone you helped grow. What did you do specifically?
Describe a time you gave difficult feedback to a colleague or a report.
Tell me about a hiring decision you got right, or wrong.
How do you decide who gets a stretch assignment?

Full guide: Hire and Develop the Best interview questions

Insist on the Highest Standards

Listening for: a standard you held when it would have been easier not to, and how you handled a defect.

Tell me about a time you refused to ship something that was not good enough.
Describe a time you raised the quality bar for your team.
Tell me about a defect that reached customers. What did you change so it stayed fixed?
When did your standards create friction with someone, and what happened?

Full guide: Insist on the Highest Standards interview questions

Think Big

Listening for: a goal that was larger than the obvious next step, and what you did to make it concrete.

Tell me about the most ambitious proposal you have made.
Describe a time you convinced others to pursue a bigger goal than they had planned.
Tell me about a time thinking small limited a project. What would you do differently?

Full guide: Think Big interview questions

Bias for Action

Listening for: speed with judgment. You moved before you had everything, and you knew which decisions were reversible.

Tell me about a time you made a decision quickly without all the information.
Describe a time you took a calculated risk. What was the calculation?
Tell me about a time waiting for more data would have been the wrong choice.
When did acting fast go wrong, and what did you learn?

Full guide: Bias for Action interview questions

Frugality

Listening for: results from constraint, not cost-cutting for its own sake.

Tell me about a time you delivered with fewer resources than you wanted.
Describe a time a constraint led to a better solution.
Tell me about a time you decided not to spend money or add people. What happened?
How do you tell the difference between frugal and cheap?

Full guide: Frugality interview questions

Earn Trust

Listening for: candor, especially about your own mistakes, and whether people chose to rely on you.

Tell me about a time you had to rebuild trust with someone.
Describe a time you admitted a mistake in front of your team.
Tell me about a time you gave feedback that was hard to hear.
Tell me about a time you told a senior person something they did not want to hear.

Full guide: Earn Trust interview questions

Dive Deep

Listening for: whether you go to the data and the details yourself when a metric and a story disagree.

Tell me about a time a metric and an anecdote disagreed. What did you do?
Describe the most complex problem you had to understand from the ground up.
Tell me about a time you found a root cause others had missed.
How do you know when you have gone deep enough?

Full guide: Dive Deep interview questions

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit

Listening for: a respectful, evidence-based disagreement, and real commitment after you lost.

Tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager. What happened?
Describe a decision you disagreed with but still had to carry out.
Tell me about a time you pushed back and were right. Now a time you were wrong.
How do you disagree with someone more senior than you?

Full guide: Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit interview questions

Deliver Results

Listening for: an outcome you can measure, delivered despite something going wrong.

Tell me about a time you delivered under a tight deadline. What did you trade off?
Describe a project that went off track. How did you bring it back?
Tell me about a goal you missed. What did you do next?
What is the result you are proudest of, and what was your part in it?

Full guide: Deliver Results interview questions

Strive to be Earth's Best Employer

Listening for: whether you make the people around you safer, more capable, and more likely to stay.

Tell me about a time you improved the working environment for your team.
Describe a time you helped someone through a difficult period at work.
Tell me about a time you noticed a colleague was struggling before they said so.

Full guide: Strive to be Earth's Best Employer interview questions

Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility

Listening for: whether you think about the second-order effects of your work on customers, communities, and people outside the team.

Tell me about a time you considered the wider impact of a decision beyond your team.
Describe a time you left something better than you found it.
Tell me about a decision that was right for your team and wrong for someone else. How did you handle it?

Full guide: Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility interview questions

The questions that come up most often

Across roles, a few questions appear in almost every loop because they cover several principles at once. Prepare these first:

Tell me about a time you failed. (Ownership, Earn Trust, Learn and Be Curious)
Tell me about a conflict with a colleague or manager and how you resolved it. (Have Backbone, Earn Trust)
Tell me about a time you missed a deadline. (Deliver Results, Ownership)
Tell me about a decision you made with incomplete information. (Bias for Action, Are Right, A Lot)
Tell me about a time you had to choose between what the customer wanted and what the business wanted. (Customer Obsession)
Tell me about something you simplified. (Invent and Simplify, Frugality)
Tell me about a time you had to learn something quickly. (Learn and Be Curious)
Tell me about a time you disagreed with a decision and had to carry it out anyway. (Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit)
Tell me about the hardest feedback you have given or received. (Earn Trust, Hire and Develop the Best)
Tell me about your most significant professional achievement. (Deliver Results, Think Big)

Each maps to more than one principle. That is why a small set of well-prepared stories goes further than a long list of thin ones.

How to answer in the STAR shape Amazon expects

Amazon interviewers are trained to collect specifics, and the STAR method is the shortest route to giving them. The shape that works in an Amazon room:

Situation in two sentences. Enough context to understand the stakes, no more.
Task as your task, not the team's.
Action as the longest part, in the first person. "I decided", "I wrote", "I called". The word "we" in the action section is the most common reason a story fails at the debrief, because the interviewer cannot tell what you did.
Result with a number where one exists: latency, revenue, time saved, defect rate, days. If the result was bad, say so and go straight to what you changed.

Then stop. Leave room for the follow-up, because that is where the interviewer forms their verdict. Ninety seconds plus three strong follow-ups beats a four-minute monologue.

How many stories you need

Sixty questions does not mean sixty stories. Candidates who do well on an Amazon loop usually walk in with eight to ten stories, each mapped to two or three principles, and a note on which follow-ups each story can survive.

Build the set this way:

Pick the moments from your last five years with a clear beginning, a decision you owned, and an outcome you can describe honestly.
Mark every principle each story can serve. Pulling a release when the error rate rose can serve Insist on the Highest Standards, Customer Obsession, and Have Backbone.
Make at least two of them failures. Interviewers ask for one directly, and a candidate who cannot produce one looks either unreflective or inexperienced.
Write each story in STAR form, then cut the Situation by half.

The story bank guide walks through the method in detail.

By role

The principles are the same for every role, but the weight shifts. These are patterns reported by candidates, not rules; any principle can appear in any round.

Software engineers: Dive Deep, Insist on the Highest Standards, Deliver Results, Ownership and Bias for Action, with technical specifics inside the behavioral answer. See the Amazon software engineer interview guide.
Engineering managers: Hire and Develop the Best, Earn Trust, Have Backbone, Deliver Results, and Think Big. People decisions, not just projects. The engineering manager interview guide covers the wider loop.
Product and program managers: Customer Obsession, Invent and Simplify, Are Right, A Lot, Dive Deep, and Deliver Results. Data and trade-offs carry the answer.
Operations and non-technical roles: Customer Obsession, Deliver Results, Ownership, Bias for Action, and Frugality, often through questions about process and people under pressure.

Common mistakes

Answering with a team story. If the interviewer cannot tell what you did, the answer scores as if you did nothing.
No numbers in the result. "It went well" is not a result at Amazon.
A story that stops at the result. Interviewers want what you learned and what you would do differently.
Reusing one story for everything. The debrief will notice that four interviewers heard the same project.
Naming the principle instead of showing it. The specifics do the work.
Having no failure story ready, or offering a fake one ("I work too hard").

Practice these out loud with someone who pushes back: get matched with a coach who has run Amazon loops, or start with the Amazon leadership principles guide and the story bank method.