TPM Interview Prep

At Amazon, our goal is to be the world’s most customer-centric company by delivering innovative products, services, and ideas. The Technical Program Manager (TPM) 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 TPM do at Amazon?

Our TPMs work with multiple teams to deliver the functionality those teams are responsible for. The TPM is the glue that holds these teams together. They keep a bird’s-eye view on what the teams are delivering and how the deliverables fit together.

  • The ‘Technical’ part of ‘TPM’ requires identifying dependencies and technical risks that affect their teams.
  • The ‘Program Manager’ part of ‘TPM’ involves scheduling, managing sprints, creating milestones, and reporting status.

The interplay of these two responsibilities means the TPM not only coordinates schedules, but also helps teams execute against their schedules.

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The process

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

  • Job Application

  • Technical Phone Screening

  • Writing Assessment (2 days prior to interview loop)

  • Interview Loop

  • Interview Outcome (within 5 business days)

Technical phone screening

Your technical phone screening will be with a senior leader on our team. It will last 60 minutes and will cover behavioral/situational and technical questions.

Interview loop

Your loop will include five 55-minute interviews where you’ll meet with members of our technical program management 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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System design

At Amazon, designing software systems is unique due to our size and speed of change. Expect at least one question on software systems design.

Your interviewer will ask questions related to your design, and you should ask questions to complete and validate your design.

Objectives

  • Practicality
  • Accuracy
  • Efficiency
  • Reliability
  • Optimization
  • Scalability

System design resources

System design videos

  • SDM/TPM Interview – Systems Design

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    Tips for interviewing for the systems design interview TPM.

  • System Design Interview Prep

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    Learn how to approach, analyze, and solve technical questions in your interview.

Management skills

Be ready to showcase your contributions to product and program strategy. This includes your ability to start from a customer-centric perspective, establish meaningful metrics, and successfully manage end-to-end projects.

You’ll want to demonstrate effective communication, proactive identification of obstacles, adept handling of escalations, how you’ve made trade-offs, and how you’ve balanced business requirements and technical limitations.

Objectives

  • Efficiency
  • Influence
  • Quality
  • Time Management
  • Realistic Goals
  • Process Improvement

Competencies

TPM videos

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.

Learn more about interviewing at Amazon
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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 where 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.

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