Amazon leadership principles practice, 16 principles, 16 questions
Amazon's interview loop is built around its leadership principles, behavioral questions and the STAR method. Pick a principle, plan a story, answer against a timer and check yourself. Free, with no sign-up.
Free and runs in your browser. Soreno is independent and not affiliated with Amazon. The questions and tips are original, not Amazon's. The 7-day free trial includes 2 mock interviews and 3 drills.
Sixteen principles, one story each
Choose a principle, read the practice question, plan with STAR, speak for two minutes and see what a strong answer covers. Prepare more than one story and reuse stories across principles.
Tell me about a time you changed your plan because of what a customer told you.
Original practice questions written by Soreno, not Amazon's questions. Use a real example from your own experience.
Amazon's interview page names the STAR method. Jot a few words for each part, and say I where it was you. Notes stay in your browser.
Situation
- Where and when was this, in one sentence?
- What made it hard or important?
Task
- What exactly were you responsible for?
- What did success look like?
Action
- What did you do, step by step? Say I, not we.
- Why did you choose that approach over another?
Result
- What happened? Use a number only if you know what it measures.
- What would you do differently?
Aim for about two minutes, then stop. Amazon does not publish an answer length on the pages we read, so this is our own target. Speak, do not read your notes.
0 of 6 checked
What the difference sounds like
An invented example for the Dive Deep question, so you can see the difference. It is not a model answer to copy: your story has to be yours.
Describe a time the numbers and the stories you were hearing did not match. What did you do?
Weak answer
Our team was told that customers were happy, but the numbers looked a bit off. I looked into it and found a few issues, and I worked with the team to fix them. In the end things improved and the customers were happier. It taught me that it is important to look at the data.
- Says numbers looked off without saying which numbers or why.
- Hides the actions behind 'looked into it' and 'worked with the team'.
- The result and the lesson are generic.
Strong answer
At a subscription company I was told the support team was resolving 90 percent of tickets in one contact, but customers kept complaining about repeat emails. I pulled the ticket export and found that the 90 percent counted tickets as resolved when an agent replied, even if the customer wrote back within a day. I rebuilt the measure to count a ticket as resolved only if there was no reply for three days, and the real figure was 71 percent. I showed the support lead five examples of customers who had written in three times, and we agreed to change the metric. Over the next quarter we fixed the two top causes of repeat contacts, and the three-day figure rose to 82 percent. I now check how a metric is defined before I trust it.
- Names the mismatch and goes to the source data.
- Finds a specific cause (the definition) and rechecks the number.
- Counts the result (71 to 82 percent) and states a changed habit.
The people, firms and numbers in these examples are invented for illustration.
The 16 leadership principles, with a question and a tip for each
The names are exactly as Amazon lists them. The practice question and the tip for each are ours, written to help you find a real story.
- 1
Customer Obsession
Tell me about a time you changed your plan because of what a customer told you.
Our tip: Name the customer, quote what they said and show the change you made. Competitors and internal politics are not the story.
- 2
Ownership
Describe a time you took responsibility for a problem that was not part of your job.
Our tip: Show the moment you decided it was yours, what you did and what you left better than you found it.
- 3
Invent and Simplify
Tell me about a time you made a process simpler or invented a better way to do something.
Our tip: Give the before and after, in numbers or time. Say where the idea came from, including outside your team.
- 4
Are Right, A Lot
Describe a decision you made with incomplete information, and how you checked you were right.
Our tip: Show how you sought views that disagreed with you and what you did when the evidence changed your mind.
- 5
Learn and Be Curious
Tell me about something you taught yourself because a project needed it.
Our tip: Say what you did not know, how you learned it and where you used it afterwards.
- 6
Hire and Develop the Best
Describe a time you helped someone on your team grow into a bigger role.
Our tip: Focus on what you did for the person: the feedback, the stretch task, the support. Not only the outcome for you.
- 7
Insist on the Highest Standards
Tell me about a time you refused to ship something that was not good enough.
Our tip: Say what the standard was, who pushed back and what it cost. Show you fixed the cause, not only the defect.
- 8
Think Big
Describe a time you proposed an idea much larger than what was asked.
Our tip: Show the larger direction and how you made it believable to others, then what you did first.
- 9
Bias for Action
Tell me about a time you made a quick decision without all the data.
Our tip: Explain why speed mattered, why the decision was reversible and how you limited the risk.
- 10
Frugality
Describe a time you achieved a goal with far fewer resources than you wanted.
Our tip: The constraint should force a better idea. Show what you did instead of asking for more money or people.
- 11
Earn Trust
Tell me about a time you admitted a mistake to your team or a stakeholder.
Our tip: Say what you got wrong, how you said it and what you did next. Do not make the mistake sound small.
- 12
Dive Deep
Describe a time the numbers and the stories you were hearing did not match. What did you do?
Our tip: Show the detail you went into, how you checked the data and what you found that others missed.
- 13
Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
Tell me about a time you disagreed with a decision, said so and then supported it.
Our tip: Show the disagreement stated respectfully with your reasons, and then what committing looked like in action.
- 14
Deliver Results
Describe a time you hit a goal despite a serious setback.
Our tip: Say what the key inputs were, what broke and what you changed. Give a result you can count.
- 15
Strive to be Earth's Best Employer
Tell me about a time you made your team a safer or fairer place to work.
Our tip: Show a specific change and how you checked that people felt it, not only that you cared.
- 16
Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility
Describe a time you thought about the wider effects of a decision beyond your own team.
Our tip: Pick a decision where a side effect for others was real. Say how you found out and what you changed.
What the employer says, and what it does not
Here is what Amazon publishes on its own careers pages about its leadership principles and interviews, and what it does not publish.
Stated on its own pages
- Amazon publishes 16 Leadership Principles and says it uses them every day, including when it decides how to solve a problem. The list is in the section above, with the names as Amazon publishes them. Amazon Jobs: Leadership Principles.
- In the interview loop you meet individually with current employees, and each person assesses different aspects of your skills and experience. The loop page covers the Leadership Principles, behavioral-based questions and the STAR method. Amazon Jobs: Interview loop.
Not published
- Which principles any given interviewer asks about, how many questions you get or how long each interview is.
- How answers are scored. Lists of 'the' question for each principle come from candidates and prep companies, not from Amazon.
- The interview loop differs by role and team. Check your own invitation for the format.
Sources, read October 2026
Soreno is independent and not affiliated with Amazon. Processes change, so check the employer's pages and your invitation for the current format.
Then practice it with an AI interviewer
These are features that exist in the Soreno app today. Soreno's behavioral library is general: it does not contain an Amazon-specific question set, and it does not reproduce Amazon's questions or scoring.
- 1
Behavioral questions in the library
Soreno's library includes behavioral questions. You pick one, answer out loud, and the AI interviewer asks follow-ups.
- 2
Follow-ups on your own story
The interviewer asks about the specific story you told, the way the follow-up drill on this page does, so a thin answer shows up in practice instead of in the real interview.
- 3
A scored report
After the session you get feedback with quotes from your own answer and a plan for the next attempt. Check it against what really happened; it is AI coaching, not an employer's rubric.
Keep going, then do it out loud
Read the longer guides, try the other free practice pages or compare ways to practice.
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