Overview

Disclaimer:

All situations are strictly hypothetical in nature and may or may not have happened in the real universe. Any details may have been changed including but not limited to names, responsibilities, jurisdictions, contributions, technologies, and anything else. These stories are not to be taken necessarily as matter of fact. Project names, company names, any names, may also be sometimes replaced with REDACTED or random letters.

What to Focus On:

Try to focus on technical rather than non-technical stories (scaling, latency, QPS, users, or technical specifications).
Try to focus on projects that took weeks or a couple months max - stories that are too long horizon or too short can be harder for interviewers to understand.
Display your curiosity in the stories, drive home the point that you are a junkyard dog.

Example Behavioral Questions:

Tell me about a time where you sought out perspectives other than your own to make a product/service/project/assignment better.
Tell me about a time when you had to analyze facts quickly, define key issues, and respond immediately to a situation. What was the outcome?
Give me an example of a time you used feedback to drive improvement or innovation. What was the situation and what action did you take?
Tell me about a goal that you set that took a long time to achieve or that you are still working towards. How do you keep focused on the goal given the other priorities you have?
Tell me about a time when you linked two or more problems together and identified an underlying issue. Were you able to find a solution?
Give me an example of when you took an unpopular stance in a course/meeting with peers and your instructor/leader and you were the outlier. What was it, why did you feel strongly about it, and what did you do? (conflict)
Tell me about a time you wouldn’t compromise on achieving a great outcome when others felt something was good enough. What was the situation?
Tell me about a time you made a hard decision to sacrifice short term gain for a longer term goal.
Tell me about a time when you realized you needed to have a deeper level of subject matter expertise to complete your assignment or task well.
Tell about a time you went above and beyond.

Mapping:

1 -> Customer Obsession, learn and be curious
2 -> bias for action, deliver results
3 -> OWNERSHIP, customer obsession, delivery results
4 -> deliver results, dive deep / bias for action
5 -> invent and simplify, customer obsession (dash hehe)
6 -> Have backbone, ownership
7 -> Have Backbone, Insist on the highest standards, ownership?
8 -> insist on the highest standards, dive deep
9 -> Learn & B curious, dive deep
10 -> Customer Obsession, Dive Deep

Note there is no Frugality in the list.

"Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense."

Questions That Should Be Answered Each Time

Situation:

What was the context/background for the situation you were in?
Where did it occur, when did it happen?
What was the goal?

Task:

What was your role?
What were you trying to achieve?
Why was it important?
What were the risks/consequences if nothing happened?

Action:

What did you personally own?
How did you do it? How did you influence the outcome?
Who else was involved?
What was the most significant obstacle you faced?

Result:

How did you measure success for this project?
What results did you achieve? (METRICS OR DIE)
What trade-offs did you have to make to achieve this?
What did you learn or would have done differently?

Followup:

5 why's

Questions Interviewers may ask

Situation and Task:

Where, when, and why?
Why is this important? What was the goal?
What was the initial scope of the project? What were the challenges?
What were the risks and potential consequences if nothing happened?
Why did you choose this story to illustrate xyz accomplishments?
What other stories can you think of that demonstrate xyz?
Could you come up with an example that is more recent?

Action:

What did you do, who else was involved?
Deep prope functional expertise (5 whys)
Were you the key driver or project owner?
What was your biggest contribution? What unique value did you bring?
What was the most significant obstacle you faced?
Where was the division between what you did versus what the team did?
How did you set priorities or get manager buy in?
What decisions did you challenge? Why? How did you influence the right outcome?

Results:

Things to think about:
- cost savings, revenue generation
- Quantify volume, size, scale
- Percentage change, YoY improvements
- Time to market, implementation time, time savings
- Impact on the customer and team
- Quality improvements
Why did you choose to focus on these results? What other results were important?
You mentioned revenue, what percentage change is that year over year?
What trade-offs did you have to make to achieve this?
Tell me more about...the time it took, the customer impact, etc (5 whys)
What were the lessons learned?
How would you improve the process or result today?
How would you implement this at Amazon?
How did these results compare to your actual goals? (tie it back to goals stated in Situation)

Clear problem statement, different solutions, follow ups, system to "measure" results, and ideas to improve further.