Updated by Amazon candidates
Senior Product Manager (AWS) Interview Experience
I went in expecting standard PM questions, and then the AWS team started asking me about API design down to the request and response and whether it should be GET or POST. That definitely caught me a little off guard.
Interview process
I had a recruiter screen first and then an onsite with five interviews. One of those was the bar raiser, and the panel ranged from senior PMs up to staff and group PMs. The whole thing was very structured around Amazon's leadership principles, and they really drilled into each story instead of letting me answer at a high level. Because the team was in AWS, it was also more technical than a typical PM loop. That was the main thing that felt a little different from other PM processes I have done.
- Recruiter screen
- Final round
Interview rounds
2 questions across 2 roundsRecruiter screen
Overview
I started with a pretty straightforward recruiter screen that just set up the rest of the process and moved me into the onsite.
Final round
2 questionsOverview
The onsite was five interviews, including the bar raiser, with interviewers ranging from senior PMs up to staff and group PM levels, and it felt very structured the whole way through.
Question types asked
Specific questions asked
Tell me about a time that showed one of Amazon's leadership principles.
Can you go deeper on your understanding of the situation and your knowledge of the story?
Can you give me a different example for that same kind of question?
I answered with examples from my past work, but they really kept going deep on whether I actually understood the situation and my own story. I could not stay high level. A thing to expect is they may basically repeat the same leadership-principle question and still want a completely different example, so I had to keep pulling from different parts of my experience.
Have you worked on API design before?
What was the construct of that API?
What did the request and response look like?
Was it a GET or a POST type API, and why?
I told them I had been involved with the API for one of the mobile apps I worked on, and then they went much deeper than I expected for a PM interview. They asked about the actual API details like the construct, the request and response, and whether it was GET or POST. It felt like they were testing whether I had really been close to the implementation versus just talking about it at a surface level.
Interview tips
I would not rely on one polished story per leadership principle. They can come back to basically the same type of question and still expect a different example, so I would prep a deeper bench of stories. If the role is on an AWS team, I would also make sure I can talk through technical details I actually worked on, especially API basics like the construct, request and response shape, and why something was GET versus POST.
Company culture
The people I met gave me the sense that Amazon is a pretty hectic place and that working extra hours is normal. The writing culture also felt very real. It did not come across as a presentation-heavy environment at all. It felt much more like a docs-first place.
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