CUSTOMER OBSESSION

Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep
customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
1. Describe a difficult interaction you had with a customer. How did you deal with it? What was the
outcome? How would you handle it differently?
2. Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond for a customer. Why did you do it? How did
the customer respond? What was the outcome?
3. Give me an example of when you were able to anticipate a customer need with a solution/product
they didn't know they needed/wanted yet. How did you know they needed this? How did they
respond?
4. Give me an example of a time when you asked for customer feedback. How did you use that
feedback to drive innovation or improvement? How did the customer respond?
5. Tell me about a time when you evaluated the customer experience of your product or service.
What did you do? What was the result?
6. Tell me about a time when a customer came to you for something that wouldn't actually address
their need. How did you approach the situation? What was the result?
7. Sometimes customers make unreasonable requests. Tell me about a time when you've had to
push back or say no to a customer request. What did you say or do in response to that request?
8. Tell me about a time when you had to balance the needs of the customer with the needs of the
business. What did you do? What was the result?
9. Give me an example of a change you implemented in your current team or organization to meet
the needs of your customers. What has been the result? (Manager)

OWNERSHIP
Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term
results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say
“that’s not my job.”
1. Tell me about a time when you took on something significant outside your area of responsibility.
Why was it important? What was the outcome?
2. Describe a time when you didn't think you were going to meet a commitment you promised. How
did you identify the risk and communicate it to stakeholders? Is there anything you would do
differently?
3. Give me an example of an initiative you undertook because you saw that it could benefit the whole
company or your customers, but wasn’t within any group’s individual responsibility so nothing was
being done.
4. Tell me about a time when you made a hard decision to sacrifice short term gain for something that
would create long term value for the business. What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now,
would you have done anything differently?
5. Describe a time when you had to transition a project you owned to a new owner. What steps did
you take to make sure the transition went smoothly? Tell me about a time that you chose to get
involved in a project that you had already transitioned to somebody else. What was the situation?
Why was it important to get involved?
6. Tell me about a time when you saw a peer struggling and decided to step in and help. What was the
situation? Why did you decide to step in? What actions did you take?

INVENT AND SIMPLIFY

Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to
simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by
“not invented here.” As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long
 periods of time.
1. Give me an example of a complex problem you solved with a simple solution. What made the
problem complex? How do you know your solution addressed the problem?
2. Describe the most innovative thing you’ve done and why you thought it was innovative. Ask for
one or two more examples to see if it's a pattern of innovative thinking. What was the problem it
was solving? What was innovative about it?
3. Tell me about a time when you were able to make something simpler for customers. What drove
you to implement this change? What was the impact?
4. Describe a time when you influenced and drove new thinking and innovation out of your team.
Give an example of how your approach led to a specific innovation.
5. Tell me about a time when you had a challenging problem or situation that the usual approach
wouldn't address. How did you select an alternative approach? What alternative approach(es) did
you consider? What was the end result? What was the impact?
6. Tell me about a novel idea you had or decision you made that had a big impact on your business.
What was novel about it?
7. Tell me about a time when you enabled your team/a team member to implement a significant
change or improvement. What problem were you trying to solve? How did you measure success?
What was the end result/impact? (Manager)

ARE RIGHT, A LOT

Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse
perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.
1. Tell me about a time when you didn't have enough data to make the right decision. What did you
do? What path did you take? Did the decision turn out to be the correct one?
2. Tell me about a strategic decision you had to make without clear data or benchmarks. How did you
make your final decision? What alternatives did you consider? What were the tradeoffs of each?
How did you mitigate risk?
3. Tell me about a time when you made a difficult decision with input from many different sources
(customers, stakeholders, partner teams, etc.). What was the situation and how did you arrive at
your decision? Did the decision turn out to be the correct one? Why or why not?
4. We don't always make the right decision all the time. Tell me about a time when you made a bad
decision. What was the impact of that decision? What did you learn? How have you applied what
you learned?
5. We don't always make the right judgment all the time. Tell me about a time when you made an
error in judgment. What was the impact? What did you learn? How have you applied what you
learned?
6. Tell me about a time when you discovered that your idea was not the best course of action. What
was your idea? Why wasn't your idea the best course of action? How did you find out it was not the
correct path? What was the best course of action? Who provided it? What did you learn from the
experience?
7. Describe a time when you brought different perspectives together to solve a problem. What types
of different perspectives were represented? How did you seek out different points of view? What was
the outcome? Where there any key learnings from this experience? Knowing what you know now,
would you have done anything different?

Learn and Be Curious

Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about
new possibilities and act to explore them.
1. Tell me about a time when you realized you needed a deeper level of subject matter expertise to do
your job well. What did you do about it? What was the outcome? Is there anything you would have
 done differently?
2. Describe a time when you took on work outside of your comfort area. How did you identify what
you needed to learn to be successful? How did you go about building expertise to meet your goal?
Did you meet your goal?
3. Tell me about a time when you didn’t know what to do next or how to solve a challenging problem.
How do you learn what you don't know? What were the options you considered? How did you decide
the best path forward? What was the outcome?
4. We all have things about ourselves we'd like to improve on at work. Give me an example of
something that you've worked on to improve your overall work effectiveness. What resources did
you identify to help you develop? What was the impact?
5. Give me an example of a time when you explored a new or unexpected area of an existing space.
Why hadn't this been explored already? Why did you move forward? What were the results or what
was the impact?
6. Describe a time when someone on your team challenged you to think differently about a problem.
What was the situation? How did you respond? What was the outcome?
7. Tell me about a time when you used external trends to improve your own company's products or
services. How did you keep up to date with external trends? How did you decide to apply them to
your own company? What was the result?

HIRE AND DEVELOP THE BEST

Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional
talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take
seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for
development like Career Choice.
1. Tell me about a time when you helped one of your team members develop their career. How did
you help that team member? What was the result?
2. Tell me about a time when you invested in an employee's development. What did you invest in and
why? What was the outcome? Can you share an example where investing in an employee's
development didn't work out?
3. Give me an example of a time you provided feedback to develop the strengths of someone on
your team. Were you able to positively impact their performance?
4. Tell me about a time when you provided coaching for a team member. What started the coaching?
What was the outcome?
5. Tell me about someone you hired that you thought complemented your skills. How did you coach
an individual in areas where you have a weakness? (Manager)
6. Tell me about a time when you helped a remote team member develop their career. Can you give
me an example of a specific team member and how you helped them develop across the geographic
distance? (Manager)
7. Describe a person who struggled to get promoted under your leadership and how you helped
facilitate their success. (Manager)
8. Tell me about your most challenging talent review and promotion process that you conducted for
your team . What made it challenging? What factors did you consider in your talent review? What
factors did you consider in the promotion process? Did you incorporate a tool to counter unconscious
bias? If yes, how? How do you manage perceptions of unfair treatment? What did you learn from this
process? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything different? (Manager)
9. Describe a time when you constructed a team to accomplish a goal. What factors did you consider
in constructing the team? Did you factor diversity into your team construction? How did you balance
work requirements, team skill composition, and team stretch opportunities? What do you consider
 when you allocate work? How did you ensure team members were able to work effectively together?
Would you have done anything differently? (Manager)
10. Tell me about a time when you had a low performing individual on your team. How did you deliver
feedback? Did their performance improve? (Manager)

INSIST ON THE HIGHEST STANDARDS

Leaders have relentlessly high standards—many people may think these standards are
unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high-
quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the
line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
1. Describe a time when you refused to compromise your standards around quality/customer service,
etc. Who was your customer? What was the result?
2. Tell me about a time when you were unsatisfied with the status quo. What did you do to change it?
What was the impact? Would you do anything differently in the future?
3. Tell me about a time when you worked to improve the quality of a product / service / solution that
was already getting good customer feedback. Why did you think it needed improvement? How did
customers react?
4. Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision between standards and delivery. What
tradeoffs did you have make? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you
have done anything differently?
5. Give me an example of a goal you’ve had where you wish you had done better. What was the
goal? How could you have improved on it?
6. Describe the most significant continuous improvement project that you led. What was the catalyst
to this change and how did you go about it? What was the outcome?
7. Tell me about a time when you used feedback about your team to drive a change. How did you
gather or receive feedback on your team's performance? What was the outcome? (Manager)

THINK BIG
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that
inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.
1. Tell me about time when you were working on an initiative or goal and saw an opportunity to do
something much bigger or better than the initial focus. Did you take that opportunity? Why or why
not? What was the outcome?
2. Give me an example of how you have changed the direction or view of a specific
function/department and helped them embrace a new way of thinking. Why was a change
needed? What was the outcome?
3. Give me an example of a time you proposed a novel approach to a problem. What was the
problem and why did it require a novel approach? Was your approach successful?
4. Tell me about a time when you drove adoption for your vision/ideas. How did you know your
vision/idea was adopted by others? How did you drive adoption for your vision/ideas? How did you
track adoption? Would you do anything differently?
5. Give me an example of an idea or vision you had which was adopted by global stakeholders. How
did you drive adoption for your vision/ideas? How did you track adoption? Would you do anything
differently?
6. Tell me about a time when you thought differently to improve a process that was working. What
assumptions did you have to question? How did you evaluate if the change improved the process?
Knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently?
7. Tell me about a time when you encouraged a team member or organization to take a big risk. How
 did you balance the risk against existing business goals? What was the outcome? What did you learn
from this situation? (Manager)
8. Tell me about a time when you established a vision for a (team, product, initiative) when there
wasn't one. How did you gain buy-in and drive execution? What was the outcome? Would you have
done anything differently? (Manager)

BIAS FOR ACTION

Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive
study. We value calculated risk taking.
1. Give me an example of a calculated risk that you have taken where speed was critical. What was
the situation and how did you handle it? What steps did you take to mitigate the risk? What was the
outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?
2. Tell me about a time when you worked against tight deadlines and didn't have time to consider all
options before making a decision. How much time did you have? What approach did you take?
What did you learn from the situation?
3. Describe a situation where you made an important business decision without consulting your
manager. What was the situation and how did it turn out? Would you have done anything
differently?
4. Tell me about a time when you had to gather information and respond immediately to a situation.
What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?
5. Give me an example of when you had to make an important decision and had to decide between
moving forward or gathering more information. What did you do? What was the outcome? What
information is necessary for you to have before acting?
6. Tell me about a time when you saw an issue that would impact your team and took a proactive
approach to solve it. What was the issue? What did you do and what was the outcome? What did
you learn from this situation?
7. Tell me about a time when you felt your team was not moving to action quickly enough. What was
the situation? What did you do? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?
(Manager)
8. Tell me about a time when you were able to remove a serious roadblock/barrier preventing your
team from making progress. What was the barrier? How were you able to remove it? What was the
outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently? (Manager)

FRUGALITY
Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention.
There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.
1. Give me an example of how you have helped save costs or eliminate waste within your role or
organization. What was the situation? What was the impact?
2. Describe a time when you had to get a project or initiative completed with limited resources. How
did you approach the situation? What was the impact? Knowing what you know now, would you have
done anything differently?
3. Tell me about a time when you didn’t have enough resources to do something you felt was
important but found a creative way to get it done anyway. What was the situation? What other
options did you consider? How did you decide on a path forward? What was the outcome?
4. Tell me about a time when you had to make tradeoffs between quality and cost. How did you weigh
 the options? What was the result? Would you have done anything differently?
5. Tell me about a time when you generated a creative solution to a problem or project without
requiring additional resources. What was the problem? What was the solution and how did you
come up with it? What was the outcome?
6. Give an example of a time you requested additional funding/budget to complete a project. Why
was it needed? Did you try to figure out another approach? Did you get the additional resources?
Why or why not?
7. Describe a time when you had to decide whether or not to award or ask for additional resources.
What criteria do you use for making the call? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now,
would you have done anything differently? (Manager)
8. Give an example of a time when you challenged your team to come up with a more efficient
solution or process. What drove the request? How did you help? What were some of your biggest
challenges? What were the end results? (Manager)

EARN TRUST
Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-
critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their
team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the
best.
1. Tell me about a time when you had to communicate a change in direction that you anticipated
people would have concerns with. What did you do to understand the concerns and mitigate them?
Were there any changes you made along the way after hearing these concerns? How did you handle
questions and/or resistance? Were you able to get people comfortable with the change?
2. Give me an example of a tough or critical piece of feedback you received. What was it and what did
you do about it?
3. Describe a time when you needed to influence a peer who had a differing opinion about a shared
goal. What did you do? What was the outcome?
4. Give me an example of a time when you were not able to meet a commitment. What was the
commitment and what were the obstacles that prevented success? What was the impact to your
customers/peers and what did you learn from it?
5. Tell me about a time when your team’s goals were out of alignment with another team you relied
on in order to meet your goal. How did you work with the other team? Were you able to achieve your
goals?
6. Tell me about a time when you uncovered a significant problem in your team. What was it and how
did you communicate it to your manager and other stakeholders? What did you do to address the
problem? How did you manage the impact of this problem for the rest of your team?
7. Describe a time when you improved morale and productivity on your team. What were the
underlying problems and their causes? How did you prevent them from negatively impacting the team
in the future?
8. Tell me about a time when a team member was struggling to keep up or fit in and you stepped in to
help out. Why did you think they were struggling or not fitting in? Why did you decide in step in and
support? What did you do to help out? How did it impact your work? What was the outcome? What
did you learn from that situation?
9. Tell me about a time when a team member was not performing well and impacted your work. How
did you handle that situation? Why were they not performing well? What was the outcome? What did
you learn from that situation?
 DIVE DEEP
Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical
when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.
2. Tell me about a time when you were trying to understand a complex problem on your team and
you had to dig into the details to figure it out. Who did you talk with or where did you have to look
to find the most valuable information? How did you use that information to help solve the problem?
3. Tell me about a situation that required you to dig deep to get to the root cause. How did you know
you were focusing on the right things? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything
differently?
4. Tell me about a problem you had to solve that required in-depth thought and analysis. How did you
know you were focusing on the right things? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything
differently?
5. Walk me through a big problem or issue in your organization that you helped to solve. How did you
become aware of it? What information did you gather? What information was missing and how did
you fill the gaps? Did you do a reflection at the conclusion of the project? If so, what did you learn?
6. Tell me about a specific metric you have used to identify a need for a change in your department.
Did you create the metric or was it already available? How did this and other information influence
the change? What was the outcome of this change?
7. Have you ever created a metric that helped identify a need for a change in your department?
What was the metric? Why did you create it? How did this and other information influence change?
What was the outcome of the change?
8. Tell me about a time when you had to validate the assumptions underlying a direct report's
project. How did you decide follow up was necessary? What steps, if any, did you take to validate
the assumptions? What was the result? (Manager)

HAVE BACKBONE; DISAGREE AND COMMIT

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so
is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not
compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

1. Tell me about a time when you strongly disagreed with your manager or peer on something you
considered very important to the business. What was it and how did you handle it? Knowing what
you know now, would you do anything differently?
2. Describe a time when you took an unpopular stance in a meeting with peers and your leader. What
was it? Why did you feel strongly about it? What did you do? What was the outcome?
3. Often, we must make decisions as a group. Give me an example of a time you committed to a
group decision even though you disagreed. What factors led you to commit to the decision? Would
you make the same decision now?
4. Describe a time when you felt really strongly about something on a project but the team decided
to go in a different direction. How hard did you press the issue? How did you approach that project
afterward?
5. Tell me about a time when you pushed back against a decision that negatively impacted your
team. What was the issue? How did it turn out? Would you have done anything differently?
6. Give me an example of when you submitted a great idea to your manager and they did not support
 it. What was the idea? How did you handle the lack of support?
7. Describe a time when you had to support a business initiative that you didn't agree with. How did
you handle it? How did you deliver the message to your team?
8. Tell me about a time when the business gained something because you persisted for a length of
time. Why were you so determined? How did it turn out?

DELIVER RESULTS
Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a
timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.
2. Give me an example of a time when you were able to deliver an important project under a tight
deadline. What sacrifices did you have to make to meet the deadline? How did they impact the final
deliverable? What was the final outcome?
3. Tell me about a time when you had significant, unanticipated obstacles to overcome in achieving a
key goal. What was the obstacle? Were you eventually successful? Knowing what you know now, is
there anything you would have done differently?
4. Tell me about a time when you not only met a goal but considerably exceeded expectations. How
were you able to do it? What challenges did you have to overcome?
5. Tell me about a time when you or your team were more than half way to meeting a goal when you
realized it may not be the right goal or may have unintended consequences. What was the
situation? What did you do? What was the outcome? Looking back, would you have done anything
differently?
6. Give me an example of a mission or goal you didn’t think was achievable. What was it and how did
you help your team try to achieve it? Were you successful in the end? Looking back, would you have
done anything differently?
7. Tell me about a time when you did not effectively manage your projects and something did not
get completed on time. What was the impact? What approaches do you use to make sure you are
focusing on the right deliverables when you have several competing priorities?
8. It can be difficult to set goals for a team that are challenging, yet achievable. Tell me about a time
when you hit the right balance. How did you approach setting the goals? What was the outcome?
(Manager)

Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer

Leaders work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and
more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for
others to have fun. Leaders ask themselves: Are my fellow employees growing? Are they
empowered? Are they ready for what’s next? Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their
employees’ personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere.

Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility

We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we
are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our
actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day. We
must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our
customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day
knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always
leave things better than how they found them.