Amazon’s hiring assessments test a combination of personality traits, workplace decision-making, and (for technical roles) coding ability. Passing requires more than general interview prep. Every section of the assessment is designed to measure how well you align with Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles, so understanding those principles and how they show up in each test format is the single most important thing you can do to prepare.
What the Assessment Includes
The structure of your assessment depends on the role you’re applying for. Software development engineer (SDE) candidates face the most involved version, which includes a coding assessment (about 70 minutes), a Work Style Assessment (about 15 minutes), and a Work Simulation (about 60 minutes), plus a short feedback survey. SDE internship candidates take a slightly shorter version that skips the Work Simulation. Non-technical roles typically include the Work Style Assessment and may include a Work Simulation or other role-specific components.
Amazon advises setting aside up to two hours of uninterrupted time. Once you start, you cannot pause or restart, so choose a time when you won’t be interrupted and your internet connection is stable. One critical rule: do not use print screen functionality during the assessment. Doing so will terminate your session and lock you out permanently.
Learn Amazon’s Leadership Principles
Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles aren’t just corporate slogans. They are the scoring framework behind both the Work Style Assessment and the Work Simulation. Every scenario you encounter and every preference question you answer is being evaluated against these principles. You don’t need to memorize all 16 word for word, but you should understand the core idea behind each one and be able to recognize which principle a question is testing.
A few principles come up more frequently than others:
- Customer Obsession: Leaders start with the customer and work backward. When a scenario asks you to choose between protecting a process and solving a customer’s problem, the customer-first answer is almost always the one Amazon wants.
- Ownership: Leaders act on behalf of the entire company, not just their own team. They prioritize long-term value over short-term convenience. If a question presents a choice between escalating a problem to someone else and taking responsibility yourself, ownership means you step up.
- Bias for Action: Speed matters. Many decisions are reversible, and Amazon values calculated risk-taking over waiting for perfect information.
- Deliver Results: When scenarios force a tradeoff between being thorough and hitting a deadline, Amazon generally favors the candidate who finds a way to deliver on time.
Read through all 16 principles on Amazon’s website before your assessment. For each one, think of a real workplace situation where that principle would guide a decision. This mental exercise makes it much easier to spot which principle a question is testing when you’re under time pressure.
How to Approach the Work Style Assessment
The Work Style Assessment is a personality-style test that takes about 15 minutes. It presents pairs of statements and asks you to choose which one describes you better. There is no neutral option, so you must pick a side for every pair.
The key thing to understand is that this assessment evaluates how you behave at work, not in your personal life. A question about how you handle disagreements is asking about professional disagreements with colleagues, not arguments with friends or family. Frame every answer through the lens of your workplace behavior.
There are no objectively “correct” answers, but there are answers that align more closely with Amazon’s culture. Responses that reflect initiative, accountability, a willingness to challenge ideas respectfully, and a bias toward action tend to score well. Responses that suggest conflict avoidance, heavy reliance on consensus, or prioritizing personal comfort over results tend to score poorly.
Be consistent. Personality assessments include redundancy by design, presenting similar traits from different angles to check whether your answers form a coherent pattern. If you say you prefer working independently in one question and then say you always seek group input before acting in another, the inconsistency can flag your results. Answer honestly based on your actual work style, but keep Amazon’s principles in mind when two options feel equally true.
How to Handle the Work Simulation
The Work Simulation (sometimes called a “Day in the Life” simulation) is a 60-minute exercise that puts you in realistic Amazon workplace scenarios. You’ll receive simulated emails, messages, and tasks that require you to make decisions, prioritize competing demands, and resolve customer or team issues under time pressure.
The format is typically multiple-choice or ranking-based. You might be asked to rank four possible responses to a customer complaint from most effective to least effective, or choose the best next step when two urgent tasks conflict. Every scenario maps back to one or more Leadership Principles.
A few strategies that help:
- Read each scenario completely before answering. Details matter. A small piece of context buried in the second paragraph of a simulated email can change which response is best.
- Think about which Leadership Principle is being tested. If a scenario involves a customer issue, it’s likely testing Customer Obsession. If it involves a project falling behind schedule, it’s probably testing Deliver Results or Ownership. Identifying the principle helps you evaluate the answer choices.
- Favor action over escalation. When the options include “wait for your manager’s input” and “take the initiative to solve the problem now,” Amazon generally rewards the action-oriented choice, as long as it doesn’t involve going rogue on something clearly outside your authority.
- Watch the clock. With 60 minutes and multiple scenarios, you can’t afford to spend 10 minutes deliberating on a single question. If you’re stuck, make your best judgment call and move on.
Preparing for the Coding Assessment
If you’re applying for an SDE role, the coding assessment is a 70-minute test of your programming and problem-solving ability. You’ll typically face two algorithmic problems that need working solutions. The questions test data structures and algorithms at a level comparable to medium-difficulty problems on platforms like LeetCode.
Focus your practice on these high-frequency topics: arrays and strings, hash maps, trees and graphs, dynamic programming, and breadth-first/depth-first search. Amazon’s coding problems tend to be practical rather than purely mathematical, so look for problems that involve real-world scenarios like optimizing delivery routes or managing inventory.
During the assessment, you’re allowed to use publicly accessible online resources like official language documentation (the Java Developer Kit, C++ Standard Template Library, Python docs). You cannot access anything that requires a login or use private code repositories. Avoid copying and pasting within the assessment environment, as this can trigger monitoring flags.
Write clean, readable code. Amazon values code quality, not just whether your solution passes test cases. Use meaningful variable names, handle edge cases, and comment your logic where it’s not obvious. Before submitting, trace through your solution with a simple test case to catch off-by-one errors or missed edge cases.
Day-of Preparation
Close all unnecessary browser tabs and applications before starting. Use a reliable computer with a stable internet connection, preferably wired rather than Wi-Fi. Make sure your browser is up to date and that any required plugins or extensions are enabled.
Have water and a pen and paper nearby. For coding problems, sketching out your approach on paper before typing can save time. For the Work Simulation, jotting quick notes about scenario details helps you keep track of priorities when multiple tasks pile up.
If your assessment comes in two parts (Amazon notes this varies by country and role), check your invitation email carefully to understand the structure before you begin. Knowing what’s coming next helps you manage your energy and pacing across the full session.