The Full Guide to Becoming an Amazon Business Analyst

This page explains how to apply for a Business Analyst position at Amazon. It includes detailed information about:

  • Amazon Business Analyst interview process.
  • Amazon interview questions.
  • Different hiring programs.
  • The benefits of working for Amazon.
Amazon Buisness Analyst

What Is the Job Description of An Amazon Business Analyst?

An Amazon Business Analyst is a professional who provides senior management and stakeholders with business advice by collecting and interpreting financial information from customers and business partners.

Responsibilities include:

  • Collecting relevant information through interactions with finance and business customers.
  • Collating data from a variety of sources( AKA ‘data warehousing’) and presenting it in a clear and comprehensible format to aid in decision-making.
  • Understanding business challenges with an eye toward identifying underlying causes and opportunities.
  • Creating new metrics and improving existing metrics to aid in decision making, enabling sustainable business growth.
  • Communicating the results of their analysis to management and stakeholders both in verbal and written form.

Amazon Business Analyst Interview Process

Candidates are first contacted through email by an Amazon recruiter to set up the first interview.

This will be a phone interview with a hiring manager that is intended to provide Amazon with a basic overview of the candidate’s skills based on the information contained in their resume. The questions asked are basic and not too technical.

In some cases, the candidate is invited to undergo a second-stage telephone-based interview which dives deeper into technical issues and on the candidate’s ability to address hypothetical workplace scenarios. In other cases, however, Amazon skips this second round to go on to the third-stage interview.

In the past, the third interview was conducted in person, and Amazon would even pay for airline tickets and hotel stays for candidates to be interviewed at its facilities. However, today, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, almost all Amazon interviews are conducted virtually through the company’s Amazon Chime interface.

This third interview is extremely challenging and can last between five and six hours.

How Do I Prepare for A Business Analyst Interview at Amazon?

Business analysts at Amazon need to display a range of useful personality traits that will become useful in the Amazon work environment, as well as technologically advanced working knowledge of their field.

For the technical knowledge aspect of the interview, you should brush up on the basic terms of your profession as they apply to work in a tech field, and for the behavioural aspect, you should learn more about Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles.

All of these, are highly important to pass the hiring process and get a job at Amazon.

Amazon Business Analyst Interview Questions

As part of the Business Analyst interview, you might be asked to answer questions such as:

  • How do you prioritize your work?
  • What are the different aspects of your professional knowledge?
  • What are the personal traits you feel are useful for a business analyst?
  • Tell me about the different analytical tools that you use in your work?
  • Explain what the importance of PEST analysis is? And how do you use the PEST matrix?

What Does Amazon Look for In a Business Analyst Candidate?

An Amazon Business Analyst is expected to not just be aware of the various different technical skills (such as the use of various data mining tools, e.g., SQL, SPSS, SAS, and so on) but also to be able to make use of them creatively to research answers to different business questions as they arise. It’s ideal to also have experience doing those things in previous jobs.

Amazon Business Analyst Salary

On average, Business Analysts at Amazon get paid around $85,000 per year, although more experienced candidates may be paid more.

Amazon Business Analyst Intern

Internship positions at Amazon are available for current students in an undergraduate or graduate program in finance, mathematics, business, statistics, computer science, or similar fields or those who have graduated from such a program within the last six months.

Business Analyst- Returnship

This is a sixteen-week paid training and employment opportunity designed for qualified candidates who have been unemployed or underemployed within the past year and have the requisite skills and credentials for work as a business analyst (i.e., a bachelor’s or higher degree in a relevant field and work experience as a business analyst). Accepted candidates are paid $38 per hour.

What's It Like Working with Analytics at Amazon?

Amazon is a company that is characterized by its employees as ‘obsessed with’ analytics. Every one of Amazon’s business leaders deals with business analytics in some capacity or another and strives to enhance existing metrics.

Those employees who are full-time analysts work in a variety of roles, and the tasks they deal with vary from fairly simple ones technologically to advanced challenges making use of the most modern machine learning algorithms.

Amazon Business Analysts are provided a great degree of creative freedom in accomplishing their goals whether it’s selecting information sources and methodology for their business analysis or any other business processes that require complex data warehouse analysis.

Therefore, we can conclude that the position is desirable not just in terms of the compensation but also in terms of the professional development and unique experience of working as a Business Analyst at Amazon.