The Amazon online assessment is the stage that follows the application: a 60-to-90-minute set of exercises made up of a Work Style Assessment (a personality questionnaire measuring alignment with Amazon's Leadership Principles), a Work Sample Simulation (a situational judgement test built around Amazon workplace scenarios), and (for technical roles) a coding test. What makes it different from a generic aptitude battery is that all three components are scored against the same thing: Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles. Learn the principles and the assessment stops being a mystery; skip them and you are guessing.
Read the 16 Leadership Principles properly, then map two or three real examples from your own experience onto each one. In the Work Style Assessment, answer authentically and consistently: Amazon checks consistency, and a manufactured profile shows up as contradiction. In the Work Sample Simulation, pick the response the principles point to: customer first, act with data, own the problem, escalate proportionately. For coding roles, expect two algorithmic problems in about 70 minutes. Amazon does not publish cut scores, and they vary by role and intake.
What Is the Amazon Online Assessment?
Amazon is the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company, and its recruitment is unusually coherent: the same 16 Leadership Principles form the basis of the online assessment, every phone screen, every loop interview and the Bar Raiser's veto. Most large employers claim their values matter. Amazon operationalises them into the scoring rubric of every single stage, which is why 'know the Leadership Principles' is not motivational advice here but a literal description of how to pass.
The online assessment exists to sift at volume, and it does two jobs at once. The Work Style Assessment profiles how you prefer to work. The Work Sample Simulation shows what you would actually do in an Amazon situation. Together they tell Amazon whether your instincts match its principles before a human spends an hour with you.
The Amazon Hiring Process, Stage by Stage
- 1Online application (about 30 minutes). CV and application form. Amazon's applicant tracking system screens for relevant keywords, so mirror the language of the job description honestly.
- 2Online assessment (60-90 minutes). Work Style Assessment, Work Sample Simulation, and a coding test for technical roles.
- 3Phone screen (45-60 minutes). One or two behavioural interviews structured around the Leadership Principles.
- 4Loop interviews (four to seven rounds, one day). Each interview focuses on two or three Leadership Principles, and one of them is the Bar Raiser.
Amazon's assessment mix differs by role family, region and year: operations, corporate, technical and warehouse processes are not the same, and the components you sit are named in your invitation email. Do not build your plan from a video about a different role family in a different country.
Which Assessments You Will Meet
| Publisher | Questions | Time | Difficulty | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Work Style Assessment (Amazon proprietary) | Personality questionnaire | 15-20 minutes | No right answers | Measures alignment with the Leadership Principles. Answer authentically. Consistency is checked |
| Work Sample Simulation (Amazon proprietary) | Amazon workplace scenarios | 20-30 minutes | Medium | A situational judgement test. Responses should reflect the Leadership Principles |
| Coding assessment (HackerRank, technical roles) | 2 algorithmic problems | 70 minutes | Medium-Hard | Data structures and algorithms. Code quality and complexity both matter |
| Phone screen | Behavioural questions | 45-60 minutes | Medium-Hard | Structured around the Leadership Principles. STAR answers with quantified results |
| Loop interviews, including the Bar Raiser | 4-7 interviews | Full day | Very Hard | Each interview covers 2-3 principles. The Bar Raiser has veto power |
- The Work Sample Simulation is a situational judgement test. Practise the format at situational judgement, or sit one free at free SJT.
- The Work Style Assessment is a personality questionnaire. See personality tests for how these are constructed and scored.
- Role families, levels and reported assessments sit on the Amazon company page.
The Work Sample Simulation is an SJT with Amazon scenarios. The free preview gives you 4 questions per test plus 5 AI coach messages, with no payment details required.
Try the free SJTThe Work Style Assessment
The Work Style Assessment is a personality questionnaire, typically 15 to 20 minutes, that measures how well your working preferences align with Amazon's Leadership Principles. Items usually present two statements and ask which is more like you, or ask you to rate agreement with a statement. There are no right answers in the sense a maths question has one, but there is such a thing as an incoherent set of answers, and that is what the format is built to detect.
- Answer authentically. Consistency is checked across the questionnaire. A candidate constructing an idealised Amazonian answers contradictory things without noticing, because they are tracking an image rather than a self.
- Do not agree with everything. Strongly agreeing with every positive statement is a recognisable response pattern and it is not a flattering one.
- Answer as the professional you are at work, not as a personal ideal and not as an exaggerated version of Amazon's values.
- Know that faking a profile has a cost even if it works. The same principles are probed in depth in the loop, and a profile you cannot back with real stories collapses under 'Dive Deep' questioning.
The Work Sample Simulation
The Work Sample Simulation is a situational judgement test with Amazon-specific scenarios: a customer complaint with an ambiguous cause, a deadline that can only be met by cutting a corner, a colleague's data that does not add up, a decision that has to be made before all the information arrives. You choose the most and least effective responses, or rate a set of responses.
The scoring key is the Leadership Principles, so the way to answer is to run each option against them. Customer Obsession usually means the answer that serves the customer beats the answer that protects the process. Ownership means the answer that solves the problem beats the answer that correctly identifies whose job it was. Bias for Action means that when a decision is reversible, moving with the information you have usually beats waiting for perfect data. Dive Deep means checking the underlying data rather than accepting a summary.
The Coding Assessment (Technical Roles)
Technical candidates sit a HackerRank coding assessment: two algorithmic problems in 70 minutes, medium to hard, focused on data structures and algorithms. Two things matter beyond correctness. First, complexity: an O(n squared) solution that passes small test cases and times out on large ones scores as a failure. Second, code quality: Amazon's assessments frequently evaluate readability and structure alongside output, so meaningful variable names and clean decomposition are not decoration.
The 16 Leadership Principles Are the Scoring Key
Amazon publishes 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, and Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility. Every stage of the process is scored against them, and interviewers are trained to probe for evidence rather than for enthusiasm.
- Prepare two to three STAR stories for each principle. That sounds excessive until you realise each loop interview covers two or three principles and you will be asked about many of them.
- Quantify every result. Amazon's culture is data-driven: 'increased revenue by 23%', 'reduced costs by 50,000', 'improved NPS by 15 points'. Unquantified stories read as unowned.
- Expect Dive Deep follow-ups. Interviewers will drill into the detail of your story to test whether you were actually the person who did the thing. Depth, not polish, is what survives that.
- Show Ownership. Examples of going beyond your job description to solve a problem are the ones Amazon rates most highly.
Worked Example: a Leadership Principles Answer
A Leadership Principles interview question. Bias for Action states that speed matters in business, that many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study, and that Amazon values calculated risk-taking. That definition is your rubric.
Give a STAR answer that demonstrates the principle rather than one that describes a sensible person being careful.
Structure it in four moves. One: show that you recognised the urgency, why waiting had a cost, in concrete terms. Two: show that you gathered the available information quickly rather than not at all; Bias for Action is not recklessness, and 'I checked the two data points I could get in an hour' is the difference. Three: show that you made a calculated decision, naming the risk you accepted and why the decision was reversible enough to justify moving. Four: show that you monitored the outcome and adjusted when new information arrived. Then quantify the result. The weak versions of this answer are recognisable: describing a time you waited for all the information (that is the opposite of the principle), describing a time you escalated the decision to your manager (that fails Ownership as well as Bias for Action), or describing a time you avoided deciding at all.
A STAR story in which you moved with partial information, named the risk, and measured the outcome. The general lesson: for every Leadership Principles question, read Amazon's actual wording of the principle first and let it dictate the shape of the story. The interviewer is not listening for a nice anecdote. They are checking your story against a definition they know by heart.
The Loop and the Bar Raiser
The loop is four to seven interviews in one day, each assigned two or three Leadership Principles so that the day covers a wide spread with minimal duplication. One interviewer is the Bar Raiser: a trained senior Amazonian from a different team, with no stake in filling your role, who holds veto power over the hire. Their brief is not 'is this person good enough for this job' but 'does this person raise the overall bar at Amazon'. That distinction explains why a candidate can clear every role-specific hurdle and still not get an offer.
- Do not repeat the same story across interviews. Interviewers compare notes, and a candidate with three stories to cover sixteen principles looks thin.
- Expect detailed note-taking. Amazon interviewers write down what you say almost verbatim. Specificity is what survives that; generalities evaporate.
- Own the failures too. Several principles (Earn Trust, Learn and Be Curious, Are Right A Lot) are best evidenced through a story where you were wrong and changed.
- Keep STAR discipline under pressure. Our STAR method guide covers how to keep the Action section about your own decisions.
How Amazon Scores You
Amazon does not publish a pass mark for the online assessment, and there is no fixed cut-off you can aim at: the bar varies by role, level, region and intake, and the components are read together rather than individually. The Work Style Assessment does not produce a pass or a fail in the way a maths test does. It produces a profile, checked for internal consistency and compared against what the role calls for. The Work Sample Simulation is scored against the Leadership Principles rather than against objectively correct answers. The loop is decided by interviewers submitting written evidence against assigned principles, with the Bar Raiser able to block. Any specific score threshold you find quoted online is a guess.
Your 3-Week Preparation Plan
- 1Days 1-2: Read the principles. All 16, in Amazon's own words, not a summary. For each one, write a sentence on what evidence of it would look like in your own working life.
- 2Days 3-7: Build the story bank. Two to three STAR stories per principle, with a quantified result for each. Reuse stories across principles where the evidence genuinely supports both, but never reuse a story twice in one loop.
- 3Days 8-10: SJT practice. Work through situational judgement sets and, for each item, name the principle the best answer expresses. If you cannot name it, you are guessing.
- 4Days 11-13: Work Style rehearsal. Sit a personality questionnaire and read your own profile back. The goal is not to change your answers but to recognise the format and to stop overthinking it on the day.
- 5Days 14-17: Technical block (technical roles only). Timed algorithmic problems, 70 minutes, two problems, no internet. Practise the clock as much as the code.
- 6Days 18-20: Loop simulation. Four back-to-back behavioural interviews with a friend who has the principles in front of them and asks Dive Deep follow-ups.
- 7Day 21: Rest. Confirm your setup and your quiet room. Cramming the night before reliably lowers performance.
MakingMoves.ai covers 50+ test categories with 113,000+ practice questions, including situational judgement and personality formats, and the AI coach explains why one SJT response outscores another rather than just marking it. The free preview gives you 4 questions per test and 5 AI coach messages. Paid plans are GROW at EUR 19,95 per week, PRO at EUR 49,95 per month, and MAX at EUR 79,95 per month.
Common Mistakes
- Sitting the assessment without reading the 16 principles. They are the scoring key for every component. This is the most avoidable failure in the entire process.
- Faking the Work Style Assessment. Consistency is checked, and a manufactured profile produces contradictions you will not notice while producing them.
- Choosing the process-protecting answer in the simulation. Customer Obsession and Ownership usually point the other way.
- Having three stories for sixteen principles. The loop will exhaust them by interview two.
- Unquantified results. Amazon is data-driven to a degree that surprises candidates. Put a number in every Result.
- Treating the Bar Raiser as one more interviewer. They can veto the hire, and their question is whether you raise the bar, not whether you clear it.
Situational judgement and personality practice with AI explanations on every answer, plus timed mock tests across all 50+ categories.
Explore SJT practiceFrequently Asked Questions
It is a 60-to-90-minute set of exercises taken after the application: a Work Style Assessment (a personality questionnaire of about 15-20 minutes), a Work Sample Simulation (a situational judgement test of about 20-30 minutes with Amazon workplace scenarios), and, for technical roles, a coding assessment on HackerRank of about 70 minutes. All of it is scored against Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles.
Amazon has 16: 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, and Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility. They are the scoring rubric for the online assessment and every interview.
It does not produce a pass or a fail the way a maths test does. It produces a profile, checked for internal consistency and compared against what the role requires. A candidate can be screened out on it, which is why answering authentically and consistently matters more than trying to guess the ideal Amazonian. A constructed profile also collapses later, when the loop probes the same principles in depth.
The Bar Raiser is a trained senior Amazonian from a different team who joins every hiring loop and holds veto power over the decision. Their remit is to judge whether you would raise Amazon's overall bar, not merely whether you can do the role, which is why strong role-specific performance does not guarantee an offer.
Amazon does not publish a pass mark, and there is no fixed cut-off: the bar varies by role, level, region and intake, and the components are read together. Treat any specific threshold you find quoted online as a guess. Prepare the Leadership Principles and answer consistently instead of chasing a number.
Typically four to seven interviews in a single day, each assigned two or three Leadership Principles, including the Bar Raiser interview. Expect detailed note-taking and Dive Deep follow-up questions that test whether you personally did what your story claims.
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Read the assessment tipsIngmar van Maurik is the founder of MakingMoves.ai and Assessment-Training.com. With 10+ years in psychometric assessment design, he has helped over 1 million professionals prepare for job assessments.