On interviewing at Amazon

Some people refer to Amazon as an "online retailer," while many of us think of Amazon as one of the Big 4 technology companies. That means we build cool stuff. If we can dream it, we can figure out how to make it, but we need highly intelligent, driven, big thinkers who create, enhance, launch, break, re-build, and expand.

We are purposefully ambiguous – we hire strategic thinkers to figure it out. We give the wildly creative room to grow.

When interviewing at Amazon, remember that examples of your work history should center on scope, complexity, recency, and relevancy.

Scope: Few companies operate at our scope and scale but if you can bring examples in which you built or enhanced something meaningful, we can suss out those critical thinking skills.
Complexity: This can come in two flavors. Perhaps you took something unnecessarily complex and simplified it. Or maybe there was opportunity to create or enhance something that was too simple or not meaningful and you designed a process that made your organization more impactful.
Recency and relevancy: Examples from 20 years ago – unless that product had a huge impact on the market or are still in use today – should probably be left out.