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Security Engineer Interview Prep

At Amazon, our goal is to be the world’s most customer-centric company by delivering innovative products, services, and ideas. The Security Engineer interview is designed to identify candidates who have the technical proficiency, behavioral skills, and cultural fit required to help us achieve this mission.

What does a security engineer do at Amazon?

  • Advises and assists in designing, architecting, and developing security solutions to provide protection across business and security teams
  • Partners with service and security engineering teams to develop short- and long-term security strategies
  • Collaborates with service teams to solve security problems with minimal disruption to business operations
  • Continuously improves policies, procedures, and technology
  • Clearly communicates risks to business and security leaders.
  • Identifies risks and develops resilient actionable mitigating controls
  • Understands industry-based security vulnerabilities, attack patterns, and remediation techniques
  • Designs, develops, and implements security solutions with broad organizational impact

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The process

To be considered for a security engineer role, you must first submit a job application. If you meet the basic qualifications for the role, you’ll then complete a technical phone screening. Depending on the team and role, you may be asked to complete a second phone screening. If your phone screening is successful, a recruiter will contact you to arrange an interview loop.

  • Job Application

  • Technical Phone Screening

  • Technical Phone Screening Outcome

  • Interview Loop

  • Interview Outcome (within 5 business days)

Technical phone screening

Depending on the role, there will be one to two technical phone screenings. A technical phone screening lasts 60 minutes and is with a senior leader on the team. The interviewer will ask you behavioral/situational and technical questions.

Interview loop

Your loop will include five 60-minute interviews where you’ll meet with members of our security engineering community.

You’ll have the chance to discuss your experiences and expertise in several areas that help us determine success at Amazon.

These areas include both technical competencies and non-technical competencies that are based off of our Leadership Principles, which different interviewers will be assigned to evaluate.

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Technical competencies

Video resources

Behavioral interview

A significant portion of the conversation will focus on how you’ve demonstrated our Leadership Principles in your past jobs. This is because past behavior is an indicator of future success. We won’t ask brain teasers. Instead, we’ll focus on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of your experiences, as well as the ‘why’ of your decisions.

Each interviewer will typically ask two or three behavioral-based questions about successes or challenges and how you handled them using our Leadership Principles.

Download video transcript

How to prepare

First, think about your most memorable experiences in your previous jobs and recall specific details. Amazon is a data-driven company, so your answers should include metrics or data when applicable. Then, consider how you applied the Leadership Principles in your experiences.

Have examples that showcase your expertise and demonstrate how you’ve taken risks, succeeded, failed, and grown. Make sure your answers are well-structured. Use the STAR method to frame your responses.

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Amazon culture

We’re a company that brings a wide range of perspectives to inventing on behalf of our customers. These include race, ethnicity, gender, age, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, culture, language, and education, as well as professional and life experience. We’re committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.