Amazon Quality Assurance Engineer Interview Process

Have you started preparing for your upcoming QA engineer interview and are curious about the Amazon QA interview process? We've explained the Amazon QA interview process and compiled a list of Amazon QA interview questions asked at various stages of the interview to help you prepare.

Amazon’s quality assurance engineers play a crucial role in maintaining the supreme standard of its software products and services. QA engineers mostly plan and execute strategies on quality management. The company’s customer-centric vision has given rise to dedicated QA processes that seek to promote high-quality and robust customer engagement.

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Let’s go ahead and look at the Amazon QA interview process and some sample Amazon QA interview questions on coding, testing, and leadership principles.

Here’s what we’ll cover in this article:

• Requirements for Amazon QA Engineers
• Amazon QA Interview Process
• Scoring System at Amazon’s Interviews
• Amazon QA Interview Questions
• Prep Tips for Amazon QA Interview
• FAQs on Amazon QA Interview Questions

Requirements for Amazon QA Engineers

QA engineers at Amazon play an important role in ensuring the smooth functioning and flow of its various products and services. QA engineers typically design and establish strategies for testing a multitude of software programs and applications. To become a QA engineer at Amazon, it is important to:

• Have proven experience in different testing techniques and know which technique to apply for specific situations or scenarios.
• Be proficient in Object-Oriented programming languages, preferably Python and Java.
• Have a good understanding of Amazon’s 16 leadership principles.
• Have proven working knowledge of white box and black box testing methods.
• Have proven knowledge of SQA processes and methodologies.
• Have effective communication skills and the ability to work with multiple stakeholders.

Amazon QA Engineer Interview Process

The Amazon QA interview process is similar to the process for software development engineers (SDE I, SDE II, SDE III), except that in the QA interview, the design round is replaced by a systems testing round. 

Depending on the position you’re applying for, the Amazon QA interview process can have two-three rounds, with 2 online rounds and one on-site interview round.

The online rounds of the Amazon QA interview process are conducted via Amazon Chime.

Let’s take a quick look at what the Amazon QA interview process looks like.

The Recruiter Screen

This is the first round in the Amazon QA interview process. In this round, hiring managers ask you specific questions about your professional profile and experience. You can also expect a few questions on Amazon’s leadership principles, why you’re currently looking to make a job switch, and what your expectations are from the position. To give you an idea of the type of questions to expect, we’ve listed some sample questions around Amazon’s leadership principles at the end. Some other types of questions to expect in this round of the Amazon QA interview process include:

1. Why do you think Amazon will help you advance your career?
2. Why do you want to work at Amazon?
3. How do you think your experience will help the company?
4. What are some challenges you faced in this role at your previous company?
5. Do you think you’ll be the right cultural fit at Amazon? If yes, why?

The Online Assessment

This is the next stage in the Amazon QA interview process. The OA or Technical Screen consists of two interview rounds with a senior developer and Quality Assurance Engineer. The OA is a remote round where recruiters test your ability to solve coding problems in core data structures and algorithms and evaluate your knowledge of operating systems and database management.

In this round of the Amazon QA interview process, hiring managers specifically focus on understanding your approach to problem-solving, your ability to write code, and how you go about solving all test and edge cases.

In this round of the Amazon QA interview process, hiring managers typically ask easy to medium difficulty Leetcode problems, followed by a few testing and QA-related interview questions.

It is essential to brush up on core data structures and algorithms concepts to get past the Online Assessment and advance to the next stage in the Amazon QA interview process. Concepts in database management, operating systems, testing, and QA are also important from the interview perspective.

In Round 1 of the interview, questions are primarily about coding, database management, and operating systems.

Below is a list of important topics to prepare for the interview.

• Arrays, strings, and linked lists
• Trees and graphs
• Recursion
• Sorting algorithms — quicksort, merge sort, heap sort, etc.
• Dynamic programming
• Graph algorithms, including greedy algorithms
• Database management
• Operating systems

Below are some sample Amazon QA interview questions asked in the OA.

1. Explain the test processes that you’d use for the Amazon shopping cart.
2. Create focused-testing cases to break the Amazon system.
3. For a given array consisting of integers, write a program to a non-empty subarray whose elements add up to zero.
4. Write a code to find the strongly connected components in a graph
5. Implement Quicksort for a given doubly linked list

In Round 2 of the Online Assessment or Technical Screen, questions about software testing and quality assurance are asked.

Below are the important topics to prepare for the interview.

• Automation Tools like Selenium and Appium
• Knowledge of test frameworks like Cucumber, Quantum, and SpecFlow
• Object Repositories
• Code Debugging
• Creating Test Cases
• Knowledge of Continuous Integration tools like Maven, ANT, and Jenkins

Let’s look at some sample questions asked at the Technical Phone Screen round of the Amazon QA interview process.

• As a Quality Assurance engineer responsible for testing the Product Review feature on Amazon.com, what tests would you write? What would be your test plan?
• What test cases will you write to examine and test the robustness of an Amazon system?
• What test cases would you write to examine the product search feature on Amazon.com?
• How would you write smoke tests for dependent and interdependent modules?
• How would you leverage load testing and stress testing to ensure the Amazon website and app function optimally?

The On-site Interview

The On-site interview is the last phase of the Amazon QA interview process. Also called the Loop, the On-site is an in-person interview comprising multiple rounds - usually about three or four. These rounds evaluate your testing skills, programming and problem-solving skills, and understanding of Amazon’s leadership principles. The On-site interview also has a bar-raiser round, where specially trained Amazon hiring managers evaluate you to understand if you’d be the right cultural and intellectual fit at Amazon.  

The On-site interview consists of:

• Coding round - you’re asked to solve 1-2 coding problems on core DSA
• QA and software testing round - you’re asked a few domain-specific questions around quality assurance best practices and software testing.  In this round, you’ll also be asked to debug code snippets, followed by questions about your debugging approach.  
• Behavioral round - questions in this round are typically around Amazon’s leadership principles, workplace ethics, professional challenges, and more.
• Bar-raiser round - to evaluate if you’ll be the right cultural fit. This round is conducted by bar-raisers specially-trained Amazon employees whose main role is to maintain the hiring bar at Amazon. In this round, you can expect questions about your work experience, past projects, and some questions about Amazon’s leadership principles.

Some requirements for bar-raisers bar-raiser in Amazon:

• Should have conducted 100+ interviews
• Has to take special training and shadow other bar raisers
• Should be better than 50% of other employees

Some sample questions asked at the On-site interview of the Amazon QA interview process:

1. How will you troubleshoot a bug problem on the Amazon Prime Video application?
2. Write smoke tests for a scenario where there’s a bug in one of three directly interdependent modules.
3. Write smoke tests for the exit checkout and payment gateway on the Amazon website and mobile application.
4. Write test cases to validate a particular API, the input of which is a URL for an HTML page.
5. Write test cases for the most purchased product displayed on top in a particular product category.

Amazon QA Interview Questions on Leadership Principles and Behavioral Psychology

Leadership principles interview questions are typically asked at the Recruiter Screen and  Bar-raiser rounds of the Amazon QA interview process. Questions in this round generally are around Amazon’s 16 leadership principles. You’re not asked questions specific to each leadership principle, but recruiters are keen to understand how you leverage these principles to answer behavioral interview questions.

To give you an idea, let’s look at some sample Amazon QA interview questions.

1. How do you resolve conflicts at the workplace?
2. How would you set an example for coworkers and peers at your workplace?
3. Why do you think Amazon will help you scale up your career?
4. What are your thoughts on cooperation and coordination while working on cross-functional projects?
5. Tell us about a time when you disagreed with your superior. 

Practice these above Amazon QA interview questions to prepare yourself thoroughly for every round in the quality assurance engineer interview process. For more Amazon QAE interview questions on the company’s leadership principles, take a look at Amazon Leadership Principles Interview Questions

Scoring System at Amazon’s Interviews

As you go through the Amazon QA interview process, you’ll be interviewed by multiple interviewers across different interview stages. Here are some aspects that you should know about Amazon’s scoring system:

• Interviewers will rate you on four components i) Very strong ii) Acceptable iii) Not acceptable iv) Strongly not acceptable
• Hiring managers/recruiters will not be able to see scores given by each other
• The interviewers come together for a debrief and are given a chance to change their scores based on inputs received during the debrief
• The level (L2, L3, etc.) and compensation are determined by the hiring manager driving the recruitment for the role. Compensations are decided by level, location, and job title.

Prep Tips for the Amazon QA Interview

We've put together a few pointers to help you prepare for the Amazon quality assurance engineer interview process:

• Solve as many coding problems as possible, particularly in the medium to hard difficulty range on Leetcode
• Come up with stories and past professional experiences that are in line with Amazon’s Leadership Principles
• Know your way around various testing and debugging tools
• Communicate with the interviewer while solving questions
• Ask good questions when it’s your time to ask questions to the interviewer/hiring manager

FAQs on Amazon QA interview questions

Q1. Which are the concepts to prepare to answer Amazon QA interview questions?

To prepare yourself for the Amazon QA interview, you need to brush up on testing and QA concepts, testing tools, debugging, testing frameworks, core data structures, OOPs concepts, and algorithms.

Q2. What is the average salary of Amazon QA engineers in the US?

The average Amazon QA engineer salary in the United States is $114,133 per year, according to glassdoor.com.

Q3. How should I prepare myself to answer tough Amazon QA interview questions?

To answer tough Amazon QA interview questions at the interview, you need to become a good problem-solver, learn how to use specific testing tools and test frameworks, and practice answering leadership principles interview questions.

Q4.  Is there a specific programming language to learn for the Amazon QA interview?

There’s no specific language that you should learn for the interview. Being good with any Object-Oriented Programming Language, preferable Python, Java, and Perl, is sufficient.

Q5. Are coding interview questions on data structures and algorithms asked during the Amazon QA interview process?

Yes, the Amazon QA interview process involves solving Amazon QA interview questions on core data structures and algorithms. To ace the coding interview, you need to brush up on core DSA concepts, including linked lists, arrays, graphs, graph algorithms, trees, recursion, and dynamic programming. 

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