Updated by Amazon candidates
Business Intelligence Engineer, Intern Interview Experience
The interviewers were supportive and conversational. It didn’t feel like a stress test.
Interview process
I skipped any recruiter screen or OA and went straight into a two-interview loop. The whole thing was very SQL-heavy, especially because the first round was live coding. After that, the second interview mixed data visualization critique with Leadership Principles in the same slot. It felt like a pretty compact process since those were the only two interviews I had.
- Technical interview
- Final round
Interview rounds
4 questions across 2 roundsTechnical interview
2 questionsOverview
I went straight into a live SQL round. It was very SQL-heavy, and I had to write queries in real time and explain why I made certain choices.
Question types asked
Specific questions asked
Rank employees by salary and find the highest-paid employee.
I had an employee table and used a window function to rank employees by salary and identify the highest one. It was live coding, so I had to actually write the SQL instead of just talking through the approach. This round felt very focused on core SQL skills.
Write a query and explain why you would use a left join or an inner join.
Why are you choosing that join type?
They wanted me to write the query and explain the join choice, not just get the syntax down. I talked through when I would use a left join versus an inner join and wrote it that way. I also used CTEs and joins, but the main thing they were checking was whether I could justify the logic behind the query.
Final round
2 questionsOverview
The second interview was one combined slot for data visualization and Leadership Principles. It felt conversational, but I had to switch pretty quickly between critiquing charts and giving a behavioral story.
Question types asked
Specific questions asked
Here are two graphs. How would you improve them?
What would you change about the graph title?
What graph type would you use instead?
Are the right metrics being shown?
They showed me two graphs and asked how I would improve them. I focused on the graph title, the graph type, and whether the metrics being shown made sense. It was more of a critique round than building a dashboard live, so I treated it like reviewing what would make the charts clearer and more useful.
Tell me about a project where you needed to prioritize your time.
This was the main Leadership Principles question I remember. I answered with a project example and explained how I prioritized my time, decided what needed attention first, and managed the work. I do not remember the other LP prompts, if there were any.
Interview tips
I would spend most of my prep on SQL. Know window functions well for employee salary ranking type questions, and practice writing queries where you also have to explain why it should be a left join or an inner join. For the visualization part, practice looking at a chart and quickly saying what is off about the title, graph type, and metric choice. I would also have a clean story ready about a time I had to prioritize my time on a project.
Company culture
The people I interviewed with were supportive and conversational. It did not feel like they were trying to trap me or make it unnecessarily stressful.
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