Amazon Product Manager Interview: Process, Questions & Tips

Amazon PM Interview Overview

Amazon Product Manager interviews are built around the 16 Leadership Principles. Expect working-backwards thinking, press-release style product narratives, deep dives into your past decisions and sharp questions on metrics, pricing and customer obsession.

Amazon PM Hiring Process

1. 1

   Online application or recruiter outreach with resume screening against Leadership Principles.

2. 2

   Phone screen (1-2 rounds) mixing behavioral LP questions and product judgment scenarios.

3. 3

   Onsite loop of 4-5 interviews including a Bar Raiser who protects the hiring bar.

4. 4

   Written assessment for some roles: a working-backwards narrative or product document.

5. 5

   Debrief, offer and leveling.

Amazon PM Interview Rounds

Amazon Product Sense Questions

1. 1

   How would you improve Amazon?

2. 2

   You are a new PM at Google Pay. Design a feature for budgeting.

3. 3

   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?

4. 4

   Explain some new Alexa Skillsets you would roll out and why.

5. 5

   You are a new PM at Google Pay. Design a feature for paying credit card bills.

6. 6

   Give an example of a badly designed product.

7. 7

   Redesign Twitter for eCommerce.

8. 8

   How would you improve Amazon.com or Amazon.in?

Amazon Execution & Metrics Questions

1. 1

   Imagine you are a PM in Amazon. How would you reduce the rate of returns?

2. 2

   You are a PM for an e-commerce company. Due to some mistakes, the data team lost all key metrics. What are the metrics you will track as PM?

3. 3

   How would you change the Amazon Fresh experience and how would you measure them?

4. 4

   How would you find if a customer is brand agnostic or not when shopping?

5. 5

   Number of users on an Amazon website drops by 10%. What are the possible reasons, and how can we solve it?

6. 6

   One of the brands in the grocery category is not selling and has stocks left that are soon to expire. Specify all possible reasons for it and also suggest solutions for each of the reasons.

7. 7

   Amazon's Monthly Active Users (MAU) have been steadily increasing for the past six months, indicating robust user engagement. Nevertheless, the average sales per user has consistently declined during this period. What might be the reasons behind this trend?

8. 8

   How would you pack & ship exactly 1 lb of Apples?

Amazon Strategy Questions

1. 1

   How would you launch (roll out) Amazon Go?

2. 2

   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.

3. 3

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

4. 4

   How would you sell live plants on Amazon?

5. 5

   This is an interview question, with a few sub-questions I was able to get after asking them: How would you determine the roadmap for a product? (Assume any product and any feature). What are the key criteria's/aspects you will consider to create this road map? How much weight will your roadmap have for user-driven features?

6. 6

   How would you monetize Wikipedia?

7. 7

   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?

8. 8

   You're the PM at a pharmaceutical company. How would you go about launching a new sleeping pill?

Amazon Behavioral Questions

1. 1

   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?

2. 2

   Why should Amazon not hire you?

3. 3

   Tell me about a time you had conflict with a team member or a manager.

4. 4

   Tell me a time when you influenced engineering to build a particular feature.

5. 5

   Tell me about a time when you used data to influence/persuade people.

6. 6

   How do you prioritize requirements?

7. 7

   How would you make something significantly simpler for a customer?

8. 8

   What is the most challenging project you have been on?

Amazon SQL & Analytics Questions

Amazon expects data-driven PMs. These SQL and analytics concepts come up in interviews and on the job:

1. 1

   Difference between INNER JOIN and LEFT JOIN?

   INNER JOIN: only matching rows. LEFT JOIN: all left table rows + matched right rows.

2. 2

   What does GROUP BY do?

   Groups rows to perform aggregate functions like COUNT, SUM, AVG.

3. 3

   What are window functions?

   Functions that perform calculations without collapsing rows.

4. 4

   Write a query to find all unique job titles from the employees table.

   Use SELECT DISTINCT to retrieve unique values.

5. 5

   Rank employees by salary within each department.

   Use RANK() with PARTITION BY for grouped ranking.

Amazon AI Product Manager Questions

AI product questions asked at Amazon and similar companies:

1. 1

   Amazon is developing a machine learning algorithm to better target shoppers who have saved items in their shopping carts. The algorithm will send an email to users to remind them about their shopping carts. What factors would you consider when designing this algorithm? What variables would you tweak to yield higher shopping cart purchase rates?

2. 2

   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?

How to Prepare for the Amazon PM Interview

• Prepare 2 STAR stories per Leadership Principle, with quantified results and honest failure examples.

• Practice the Working Backwards method: write a mock press release and FAQ for a product idea.

• Drill metrics questions on e-commerce funnels: conversion, fake reviews, delivery experience and marketplace health.

• Expect 'why did you make that decision' follow-ups three levels deep on every story.

• Study Amazon businesses beyond retail: AWS, Prime, Alexa and advertising for strategy questions.

• Keep answers data-backed: Amazon interviewers ask for specific numbers in behavioral stories.

Amazon PM Interview FAQs