101 Common Amazon PM Interview Questions

For many years, Amazon has been one of the most attractive companies for product manager applicants. There are many reasons for this ranging from competitive pay (with an average salary of $172k/year)  to a continual expansion into new industries. 

For example, Amazon is more than a leading online retailer. The company has expanded into delivery service, groceries, video streaming, music, and more. This makes for plenty of opportunities for product managers. 

Before you decide to apply for a PM job at Amazon, it’s essential to understand what they’re looking for in candidates:

• Leadership skills
• Creative thinking
• Communication skills
• Results-driven
• The ability to “own” your products 

Amazon Leadership Principles

Understanding Amazon’s Leadership Principles is critical to preparing for a PM interview with the company. Interviewers and hiring managers at Amazon take these principles into consideration. This holds true with every job, not just product management.

Every (or almost every) interview question that you answer should be rooted in one or more of Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles:

• Customer Obsession
• Ownership
• Invent and Simplify
• Are Right, A Lot
• Learn and Be Curious
• Hire and Develop the Best
• Insist on the Highest Standards
• Think Big
• Bias for Action
• Frugality
• Earn Trust
• Dive Deep
• Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
• Deliver Results
• Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer
• Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility

Take for example the question “Can you tell me about a time when you influenced engineering to build a particular feature?”

You can tie this into several leadership principles, such as customer obsession, earn trust, invent and simplify, and think big. As you answer the question with these principles in mind, it shows the interviewer that your approach aligns with their approach. 

If all that sounds good to you — and you understand Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles — keep reading. We’re going to share 100+ of the most common Amazon PM interview questions broken down by category, along with a sampling of how to associate your answer with one or more of the 16 principles.

While Amazon PM interviews can take many twists and turns, they focus heavily on behavioral questions. This is where you’ll want to spend the majority of your preparation time. 

Amazon Behavioral PM Interview Questions

1. In layman terms, can you describe your day-to-day activities as a product manager?

2. Can you tell me about a time when you used data to influence/persuade people? (Principle: Earn trust)

3. Why should Amazon not hire you?

4. As a PM, who is your most favorite team to work with and why?

5. Can you tell me about a time when you influenced engineering to build a particular feature? (Principle: Earn trust, customer obsession, invent and simplify, think big)

6. Can you tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a colleague? How did you solve your disagreement? (Principle: Have backbone; disagree and commit)

7. How do you prioritize job responsibilities? (Principle: Deliver results)

8. Can you tell me a time that you were halfway to meeting your goal but had to pivot because you found the goal might not be right? (Principle: Deliver results)

9. How do you motivate a product team? (Principle: Earn trust) 

10. Can you tell me about a time when you were forced to change the way you work? (Principle: Have backbone; disagree and commit) 

11. Can you share 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? Was it a success? 

12. Can you share 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?

13. Can you tell me about a time when you had to mend a broken relationship with a colleague?

14. How do you know if your users are satisfied with your product?

15. How do you prioritize among competing features?

16. Describe the most significant, continuous improvement project that you’ve led. What was the catalyst for this change and how did you go about it?

17. What steps do you take when you need to conduct research to create a product or service?

18. Can you tell me about a time you had an idea that your team was skeptical about. How did you convince your team that you were right?

19. What is the most difficult problem you have solved as a product manager?

20. What approach do you take when faced with the task of handling a difficult client or customer?

21. Can you share a time when you received constructive criticism from a manager that you didn’t agree with? 

22. When was the last time you solved a problem that had multiple possible solutions? What approach did you take?

23. Can you share a product you’ve built and why you’re proud of the way it turned out?

24. Can you provide an example of when you had to analyze a large amount of data and what insights you were able to come up with?

25. Tell me about a time you were trying to understand a problem on your team and you had to go down several layers to figure it out. Who did you talk with and what information proved most valuable? How did you use that information to help solve the problem?

Amazon Estimation PM Interview Questions

26. What is the market size of toilet paper in the United States?

27. You have a grocery delivery service that delivers food within 24 hours. How many trucks would you need to operate it?

28. Tesla claims it will make auto garage shops obsolete due to zero maintenance. Can you estimate how many jobs will be impacted in the United States in five and 10 years?

29. How much time is spent waiting per day for a real human in automated systems in the United States?

30. How many reviews are left on Amazon on a given Monday?

31. How many elevators should an average office building have?

32. How would you estimate purchase order abuse in Amazon? How would you solve it?

33. How much does a driverless truck cost?

34. How many hexagons are there on a football?

35. How would you estimate the number of new users Amazon gets in a day?

Amazon Product Design PM Interview Questions

36. How would you design a library for the future?

37. What new skill sets would you roll out in Alexa? Why?

38. For a retail store, users are frequently complaining about long queues during check out. What strategy would you use to improve the experience in the short term and long term?

39. You are a new PM at Google Pay. Can you share a feature for paying credit card bills?

40. How would you design a loyalty program for a search engine competing with Google and Bing?

41. How would you design a feature to reduce Amazon’s order return rate?

42. How do you design a home automation system?

43. What steps would you take to design a video conferencing application like Zoom?

44. How would you design Alexa for blind people?

45. How would you design a post-coronavirus supermarket?

46. How would you design a test to measure the success of using a gift card promotion to get Prime members to download the Prime mobile app?

47. How do you validate your product design?

48. How would you design a bicycle renting app for tourists?

49. How would you prevent fake products from making their way to the Amazon marketplace?

50. Can you design a product for Amazon to fight COVID-19? 

For guidance on how to answer these questions, visit the “​​Amazon Product Manager Interview Questions” section of our website. There are nearly 200 questions for your review, along with hundreds of potential answers. 

Amazon Product Strategy PM Interview Questions

51. Evaluate the upsides and downsides of building a super app — an app having all major B2C features including entertainment, e-commerce, food ordering, hotel booking, cab booking, chat, holiday planning, gaming, med ordering, service booking, etc.

52. How would you sell live plants on Amazon?

53. How would you determine if a specific block in your neighborhood is suitable for a new grocery store?

54. Imagine you’re a PM at Amazon and you’re working on a partnership with Facebook that has the goal of leveraging FB’s friend network to drive Amazon sales. Walk through the lifecycle for building this integration/partnership.

55. How do you create a product roadmap?

56. Amazon is planning to expand its operations to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. They have observed that users don’t trust the brand. What should they do to build trust with the user base?

57. How will you reduce Paypal’s operating costs by 50%?

58. How would you monetize Wikipedia?

59. If you are a Chief Product Officer for YouTube, how would you explain the product to someone? What are the top three metrics you would keep track of?

60. Compare Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hotstar. Which is your favorite and why?

61. Should Amazon offer “Amazon Prime Lite,” which offers just a few perks of Amazon Prime at a fraction of the cost? If the answer is yes, what would you include in Prime Lite, and how much should it cost?

62. Should Amazon cut its affiliate rates?

63. Define a strategy for a loyalty program for Google Pay.

64. How would you decide on the price of Amazon Prime?

65. Do you recall a process change you suggested that became a norm within your team or company later on?

66. How would you design an online map that would help navigation inside a building?

67. How would you Improve customer revenue for Amazon?

68. You are PM at Amazon and you are asked to change the pricing for the Prime membership. How would you go about it?

69. Design a product to improve diners’ experiences at restaurants after they finish the meal.

70. Should LinkedIn add a Video Feed feature?

71. How can you increase Amazon’s revenue (focus on the e-commerce space)?

72. Amazon is thinking of building a social network feature into its product. Choose either pros or cons and state your case.

73. You are the founder of a credit card startup. What are the different growth metrics you would track in the early days?

74. Amazon Prime is considering launching a variant of its video streaming service for senior citizens (60+yrs). What parameters will you study to understand whether it will be successful to launch their product for this segment? How will you conclude whether it will be a success?

75. You are a platform PM for AWS. There is a new third-party platform that is becoming really popular in integrating with existing cloud platforms to improve the load balancing of app traffic. What metrics and goals would you consider in the build/buy decision?

76. How would you Improve customer acquisition for Amazon?

77. Define a strategy for Netflix to compete with Amazon Prime and Disney+ Hotstar to adopt to users in the Indian OTT market.

78. How would you Improve customer activation for Amazon?

79. How would you Improve customer retention for Amazon?

80. How would you Improve customer referral for Amazon?

81. Would you consider Amazon and Intuit to be competitors?

82. You are a new PM on the Alexa team. You are asked to come up with a Product Strategy for the next few years. What would you do?

83. A new product video review feature, which increases sales, can be rolled out now with 2-hour video processing turnaround or 6 months later with instant processing using Machine Learning. Would you roll it out now or later?

84. What do you think is Amazon’s challenge right now?

85. Write about a judgment call you’ve made recently that couldn’t be analyzed.

86. You are the product manager for Amazon Quality and Logistics team and want to reduce customer returns. What would be your process and what would you build?

87. What data analysis will you perform to launch a new physical product?

88. Tell me about an Amazon product marketing strategy.

89. How do you price a new tier for Amazon S3?

90. You are eating in your company cafeteria and someone taps you on your shoulder. It’s your CEO asking you what the company should do next. What would you do?

Amazon Leadership and Development PM Interview Questions

91. How do you make sure you keep improving as a PM?

92. Tell me about a time you disagreed with engineering and what the outcome was.

93. Why did you choose product management as a career?

94. Tell me about a product you managed from idea to launch.

95. Tell me about a time you have had to drive change.

96. How will you manage a team where team members are more experienced than you and hence don’t respect you?

97. Tell me about a time you overcame a difficult challenge.

98. How will you deal with a talented but abrasive manager?

99. How many people report to you? What is your leadership style?

100. How would you approach your boss two days before launch and tell him that you are not ready?

101. How do you define a good PM vs. a bad PM?

What To Do If You’re Stumped in an Amazon PM Interview

There’s no easy way to put it: Amazon product manager interviews are challenging. That’s why it takes so long to prepare. But even if you prepare for months on end — or longer — there’s no guarantee that you’ll breeze through the interview. You could soon find yourself stumped by a question.

The first thing you should do is remain calm. Don’t panic just because a question catches you off guard. Keep your cool so you can quickly consider the best path forward. 

Don’t hesitate to ask for a minute. You’re programmed to want to answer interview questions as quickly as possible. And while that’s your goal, it’s not required. It’s perfectly acceptable to say “give me a minute to think about that” or something similar. You can then take 30 seconds or so to gather formulate an answer. 

Practice makes perfect, but you could still run into an interview question that stumps you. Don’t let this derail the entire interview. Instead, use one of the ideas above to work through this. 

Final Thoughts

We’ve answered some of these questions above, but for more answers visit our Amazon product manager interview questions page here. Our community has shared nearly 200 questions that were asked to them in an Amazon PM interview. 

Now that you have a better idea of what to expect in an Amazon product manager interview, it’s time to prepare. In addition to practicing answering the above questions, consider signing up for our group practice and/or mock interview services. 

Amazon PM job openings are competitive, but that’s no reason to sit back and watch someone else land your dream position. Instead, devote yourself to preparing for every aspect of your interview. A high level of confidence can do wonders!