Have you always dreamt of a career as a business analyst in Amazon but failed to nail the interview? A successful career as a business analyst involves additional knowledge in product management, analytics management, and business intelligence.
Overview of Amazon Business Analyst Interview
Amazon is a company that needs no introduction. From what started out as a small e-commerce store that sold books in 1994 to becoming one of the largest employers in the world with over 41 different subsidiaries and brands.
Apart from getting the necessary qualification, you need to prepare well to increase your chances of success when you go for an interview. This article provides essential details on the Amazon business analyst interview and tips to help you prepare for the interview.
Amazon is a large tech and e-commerce company that utilizes product development and business analytics in expanding its business. Being a business analyst at Amazon, your sole responsibility will include the ability to build a functional set of operational and business metrics.
A business analyst at Amazon has to work with other teams to design, create, and employ the reporting systems. It also involves your ability to use metrics to enhance development opportunities. A business analyst will also be involved in aiding the Kaizen processes.
The Amazon business analyst interview is similar across the entire team. What matters is that your resume is shortlisted. The interview has about 4 to 5 rounds which will have to take place within a day. However, you must have done an online screening with a hiring manager. The round of interviews involves Amazon’s 16 leadership principles which aim is to test your ability. It also includes Amazon technical interview questions.
In essence, the interview involves the leadership principles, technical interview questions, background knowledge of database system design, coding, SQL queries, and product and business cases.
How the Amazon Business Analyst Interview Compares to Other Tech Companies
There are certain things the Amazon business analyst interview has in common when compared to other Tech companies. They include;
- Behavioral interviews — just like other tech companies, Amazon interviews involve tests on leadership processes. Apart from the common technical skills, employers want to be convinced that you also have leadership skills.
- Case interviews — Amazon conducts use cases interviews to check your performance and your ability to do well in the job. This particular part of the interview enables your recruiter to determine your capabilities and if you are qualified for the job.
Differences Between Amazon Business Analyst Interview Compared to Other Tech Companies
Compared to other tech companies, the Amazon business analyst interview emphasizes using the STAR method during the interview to explain your work experience better.
Amazon has moved almost entirely to AWS internally, so it will be good to possess some AWS knowledge, especially the services related to databases.
Major Distinguishing Factor of the Amazon Business Analyst Interview
- Scenario-based Questions — one major distinguishing factor of the Amazon business analyst interview is the scenario-based questions. The best way to approach them is through the STAR method. The main aim of this is to elaborate on your work experience.
Tip: Address the scenario-based questions by explaining in the context of a situation you were involved in and the responsibility given to you. Explain how you were able to perform your responsibility and the outcomes of your actions.
In essence, you should make use of the STAR method. (Situation, Task, Action, Result). Emphasize more on the action and the result.
- Technical Questions — another major distinguishing factor of the Amazon business analyst interview is the technical question. It includes SQL queries and ETLs, business case questions, statistical analysis, and product metrics.
There will be at least one round on technical skills. This round aims to test your SQL skills. However, it will help if you have background knowledge in Python or data visualization tools. You should expect SQL questions on your interview and other elements of data engineering such as data extraction and transformation.
- Behavioral interview
The Amazon business analyst interview includes the behavioral interview, which has to do with leadership principles. Explain how you have exhibited leadership competency through past events.
Some examples of leadership competency include;
- Customer management – explain how you have addressed customers’ issues by offering better solutions.
- Deep research — explain how you have provided solutions to complex issues by researching the issue deeply.
- Emphasis on action and result — while you might have a lot to say about your work experience, prioritize talking about action and result.
- Trust — leadership processes are not complete without you mentioning how you have gained the trust of your other team members. Explain how you have maintained good relationships with customers.
Most Important Amazon Business Analyst SQL Concepts
Structured Query Language (SQL) is a standard for accessing databases. It is an integral part of the Amazon business analyst interview as you will be required to provide solutions using SQL.
You don’t spend much time focusing on the theoretical concepts of Amazon and its services because only a few questions are asked during the interview. You need to prepare yourself for the interview by solving practical SQL questions.
Some of the basic concepts of SQL interview include;
- Storing data in multiple tables.
- Merging data using JOIN clauses, common table expressions, or subqueries
- Data aggregation
Most Important Amazon Business Analyst SQL Functions
- Table joins: LEFT, RIGHT, INNER, OUTER JOIN.
- Aggregation functions + GROUP BY clause, for example, MIN(), MAX(), SUM(), AVG(), COUNT()
- Window functions, for example, AVG(…) OVER (PARTITION BY … ORDER BY …)
- CASE WHEN clause.
- Rankings and top N elements with LIMIT, RANK(), DENSE_RANK(), ROW_NUMBER().
Most Important Amazon Business Analyst SQL Questions
Amazon SQL questions aim at testing your knowledge of the SQL concepts. However, there are questions you need to pay detailed attention to. SQL questions start from the basic definition-based questions to advanced practical exercises.
Some questions that are often asked are divided into seven categories. They include;
- Definition based SQL questions
- Basic SQL questions
- Reporting and metrics SQL questions
- Analytics SQL questions
- ETL SQL questions
- Database design questions
- Logic-based SQL questions
Tip: You can find company-specific SQL questions for your next technical interview on Big Tech Interviews platform.
Here are some questions to help you prepare for your SQL interview under each of these seven categories;
- Definition-based SQL Questions – In interviews, definition-based SQL questions are common, and they allow interviewers to assess your SQL skills quickly.
To prepare, all you have to do is review a list of SQL terminology and application definitions. Understanding the differences between SQL joins, the different types of aggregations accessible, and basic procedures like CASE WHEN and HAVING are just a few of the questions that will be asked.
Here are common concepts defined;
- OLTP – They are databases for processing online transactions. You have to normalize data with OLTP.
- OLAP – they are databases used for analytical processing online. Denormalize data when it is OLAP.
- WHERE – this is used to filter data rows before grouping.
- HAVING – they are used after grouping data to remove records.
- CASE WHEN FUNCTION – CASE WHEN enables you to create elaborate conditional statements in the SELECT clause and shift data from wide to long formats.
- JOIN – Join is used to combine data gotten from several data sources. A LEFT JOIN combines and returns all rows from the left table.
- COUNT – they are used to count the number of rows.
- WHERE – WHERE are used to filter rows before the GROUP BY clause
- HAVING – this is used to filter rows after the GROUP BY clause.
SQL and Metrics SQL Questions
This set of questions examines your problem-solving skills and knowledge of SQL functions. It also demands advanced SQL skills.
ETL SQL Interview Questions
- Can you tell me the difference between merge and union all transformations?
- Explain the term clustered index.
- What is the difference between a star schema and a snowflake schema?
- How do merge upserts work?
- How can history loads be done?
- Database Design SQL Interview Questions
- Database design SQL questions test your knowledge of data architecture and design.
Visualization and Reporting Questions
- What tools do you use for data analysis?
- Have you heard of Tableau?
- Where have you used it?
- How do you deal with multi-source problems?
Logic-based SQL interview questions
These sets of questions are not relatable to real-life questions and can be tricky. Are very tricky. Question: Write a query to create a new flight routes table, displaying unique pairs of two locations.
Statistical Analysis & Mathematical Logic
- Question: How are mean, median, and mode in a positively skewed distribution related?
Conclusion
Getting a job at Amazon requires many technical and business skills, including logical thinking, problem-solving skills, communication skills, and leadership skills. You should focus on developing these skills before going for an interview.
Get as many practice questions before the onsite interview. You should expect a bar raiser towards the end of your interview. Amazon uses an individual not part of the interviewing team to enhance objectivity and sustainability.
