AWS Technical Account Manager Interview Guide

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a somewhat consistent interview process. The steps are largely the same for all roles, but the exact nature of the loop can vary according to the role, team, and level.

For technical account managers (TAMs), the interview process can look like this once their resume is shortlisted:

• Online Assessment
• Recruiter Screen
• Technical Phone Screen
• Onsite Loop, 4-5 rounds (usually 2 technical, 1-2 behavioral, and one bar raiser round)
• Debrief and Hiring Decision

Candidates report that the entire process roughly takes 1 to 3 months end-to-end. However, the exact timeline varies according to the role, team, seniority level of the position, location, and scheduling availability.

While you don’t necessarily need AWS experience to apply for the TAM role, most openings do ask for a strong technical engineering foundation, some experience in a customer-facing environment, and several junior positions ask for experience with troubleshooting in at least 3 of the following areas:

• Compute
• Storage
• Networking
• CDN
• Databases
• DevOps
• Big data and analytics
• Security
• Applications development in a distributed systems environment

These days, hands-on experience operating or troubleshooting Gen AI/ML workloads on a cloud infrastructure is also a plus for applying to the AWS TAM role.

You should, however, still double-check the job posting to confirm that you meet all the listed requirements.

The first step in the AWS Technical Account Manager interview process is the online assessment. There are broadly two types of tests:

Work Style Assessment

The questions in this test are centered around Amazon’s Leadership Principles and how your work style aligns with them. It assesses your decision-making style, judgment, teamwork, and how you handle ambiguity.

You usually get multiple-choice or rating-style questions here such as:

• I look forward to the opportunity to learn new things.
• When people express gratitude, it reminds me to do the same.
• I’m normally optimistic that everything will work out.
• I like it when things are clearly structured.

These questions are more of a personality test where you often have to rate your preference rather than choosing a neutral option.

The best way to prepare for this assessment is to study and familiarize yourself with Amazon’s Leadership Principles and choose between the options based on that. However, do not think that you can game the section in this way. Be true to who you are while using the leadership principles to show your cultural fit at AWS.

Some TAM candidates also report having to take an additional assessment to test their technical knowledge. The questions in this test are about general tech concepts such as databases, networking, storage, security and compliance, cloud computing, servers and serverless technologies, and operating systems. AWS-specific questions are not really a part of this assessment.

Work Sample Simulation

In this assessment, you have to complete virtual tasks related to the TAM role. The tasks would, therefore, be related to areas such as handling customer escalations, managing multiple priorities, resolving technical problems, and decision making.

The deadline to submit the assessment is mentioned in the invitation email itself.

You are contacted by a recruiter for an initial screening if you clear the online assessment. It is a 30-45 minute conversation where the recruiter asks questions about your background, experience in technical engineering, and why you want to work at AWS. They might also discuss logistics and compensation expectations and explain the future rounds at this stage.

This round, therefore, includes questions like:

• Walk me through your resume.
• Why do you want to work at AWS?
• Why do you want to be a technical account manager?
• What cloud/AWS experience do you have?

You need to give clear and concise answers to all the recruiter questions. You should also highlight your experience in customer-facing roles, cloud technologies, and consulting to show that you are the right fit for the position.

For the Why AWS question, we recommend thoroughly going through the Amazon LPs and demonstrating how your past experience aligns with them. AWS takes these principles very seriously, so weaving them into your answers is non-negotiable for all the interview rounds.

The next step in the AWS Technical Account Manager interview process is the technical phone screen. It is a 60-minute conversation, usually with a TAM or Solutions Architect who evaluates your technical knowledge along with your communication skills and approach to problem-solving.

Technical questions form the bulk of the interview though the interviewer may ask one or two behavioral questions as well. The questions cover multiple domains like networking, security, compute, databases, etc. Further, some candidates report that interviewers may go in-depth into your self-reported strong areas.

The questions in this round are generally like this:

• What happens when a URL is entered in the browser?
• Explain how DNS works when you open a webpage.
• How does HTTPS/SSL work?
• Explain the difference between a Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancer.

One thing you should remember here is that the interviewer expects detailed answers for each question. They often put forward open-ended questions to judge the depth of your knowledge and analyze your strong areas.

Therefore, simply giving textbook definitions isn’t going to cut it. Your answers need to have a clear structure and demonstrate that you know what you are talking about. For example, an answer about the shared responsibility model should explain, with context, how it works and a real-world example or application to demonstrate deeper understanding of the concept.

If you don’t know the answer to any question, it is always better to admit that than trying to bluff your way through it.

We also recommend that candidates ask some thoughtful questions to the interviewer towards the end to demonstrate qualities like Learn and Be Curious.

The onsite loop, consisting of 4-5 interviews of 45-60 minutes each, is the decisive stage of the AWS TAM interview process. 

The loop evaluates your technical competencies and cultural fit by checking your alignment to the LPs. Every round/interviewer is assigned 2-3 of these.

All the interviews are generally scheduled on the same day but this can vary based on interviewer availability.

AWS also schedules a prep call for candidates before the loop to orient them about the details of the interview and confirm the meeting platform.

Technical account managers generally have to face two rounds of technical interviews in the onsite loop. The breadth round covers multiple domains: networking, compute, storage, databases, security. The depth round focuses on the 2-3 areas you marked as strengths. The interviewers also ask a few behavioral questions in these rounds but they are mainly focused on the tech aspect.

These interviews are usually scenario-based with no coding problems given to candidates. The format is, therefore, largely similar to the technical phone screen. Expect questions on concepts such as least privilege, blast radius, fault isolation, horizontal vs. vertical scaling, stateless tiers, caching layer, connection pooling, etc.

Troubleshooting scenarios are pretty common, such as: a customer's site is slow or down and you have to work from the edge inward.

Candidates report the following questions as part of the technical breadth interview:

• How would you explain cloud computing to a non-technical person, such as a CEO or stakeholder?
• How would you scale a web application to handle increased user traffic?
• Describe a three-tier architecture and its advantages.
• How do you handle authentication and access control in a multi-tier cloud environment?

Our coaches have confirmed in the mock sessions that it is completely fine if you don’t know the specifics of AWS’ services. They advise candidates to brush up on the fundamentals, particularly about networking and troubleshooting.

In the technical depth interview, the interviewers are going to push the limits of your knowledge. They are going to probe into several layers below your initial answer. For example, the interviewer may go into the depth of throttling or exponential backoff in a question about API and distributed systems. 

Therefore, you need to have genuine depth in the areas relevant to the role that are marked as your strengths to tackle this round.

The behavioral questions in these rounds tend to be like this:

• Tell me about a time you had to solve a technical problem under pressure.
• Describe the most complex technical challenge you have solved. How did you solve it?
• Tell me about a time the root cause turned out to be something other than what the customer’s team was reporting.

For the technical questions, we recommend taking a pause to gather your thoughts and properly structure your answers. Don’t be afraid to ask clarifying questions. 

You need to be calm and confident while answering and demonstrate your ability to effectively communicate complex technical concepts to both tech and non-tech people.  We also recommend that you talk about your trade-off reasoning: how you tried to make the best choices according to the customer’s requirements. It is a plus if you can run a Well-Architected Review (WAR) based on the 6 pillars:

• Operational Excellence
• Security
• Reliability
• Performance Efficiency
• Cost Optimization
• Sustainability

The behavioral rounds are meant to be a test of your ability to be a trusted technical advisor to enterprise customers. Therefore, the questions in this round are particularly rooted in the organization’s LPs. You get to talk with a bunch of people ranging from hiring managers to TAM peers and senior TAM leaders in these rounds. 

For the interview, each interviewer has a set of LPs and they ask questions about your past experience to evaluate your alignment with those particular principles.

Prepfully candidates report the following questions in this round:

• What’s your approach when a client wants a discount that doesn’t align with company policy?
• Can you provide an example of a time when you received constructive criticism?
• Walk me through a Sev-1 you were the primary on. What did you do in the first 30 minutes?
• How do you handle professional disagreements in a team setting?

To tackle the LP-based behavioral questions, you need to create a story bank with at least 2 stories for each principle. Most places recommend using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) framework to structure the stories. 

However, we have seen that people who truly stand out go one step beyond STAR. Their answers have an X-factor: it could be honest reflections about a particular experience, how that experience shaped them as TAMs, or how they applied learnings from an experience to future situations. We call this approach STAR+, i.e., STAR plus Learning.

You should always use ‘I’ while answering to emphasize your personal contributions in the whole situation. We also recommend that you lead with the metric: bring up the escalation path and MTTR to really drive home the impact of your actions. It makes note-taking easier for the interviewers and clearly shows how your actions provided value to the customer.

One thing to note here is that AWS’ work culture is based on Customer Obsession and it is particularly important for TAMs since their role is primarily customer-facing. Therefore, you need to relate your answers to Customer Obsession as much as you can. 

Our coaches say that Customer Obsession should be in at least 50% of your answers. Ownership, Learn and Be Curious, Think Big, Bias for Action, Dive Deep, and Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit are some other LPs they advise TAM candidates to prioritize.

According to them, it is fine if you don’t have complete technical knowledge of AWS’ products and solutions but LPs are something AWS does not compromise on. It is important to include what LPs are being impacted in your STAR+ answers.

The Bar Raiser is an independent interviewer who is not from your hiring team. Their role is to raise the bar, i.e., ensure that every new hire performs better than 50% of current employees in a similar role.

The Bar Raiser has a critical role here as they are responsible for partnering with the hiring manager and interviewers to reach a consensus. They also have veto power over the decision, which means a candidate cannot be hired without the Bar Raiser's approval.

This interview is all about your experience and values. They will ask questions and data-driven follow-up questions about your contributions, customer impact, ownership, conflict, success, and failure. The Bar Raiser may also put forward some hypothetical TAM scenarios to test your judgment.

Some examples of the follow-up questions in the bar raiser interview are:

• Tell me about a time this particular approach did not work.
• What do you think you could have done differently in that situation?
• Did you find additional information during the situation, and did that cause you to change your plans?
• What did you learn from the situation? Have you incorporated those lessons into future situations?

You should have a story bank structured in the STAR+ format ready for this round. It is always better to use stories different from the ones you used in the previous rounds. But you can still reuse stories given that you talk about them from a different angle or offer a new perspective about that experience.

Be candid about your mistakes and failures in the interview. It shows self-awareness and a growth mindset, something which AWS definitely values in candidates and employees.

The internal debriefing and hiring process begins once the onsite loop is over. Amazon grades candidates by rating specific leadership principles as either a Strength (ST), Satisfies (SA), Development Needed (DN), or No Evidence (NE). Technical competencies are also graded alongside for TAMs. Interviewers use these ratings to then cast a final hire or no-hire vote on a scale of Strongly Inclined > Inclined > Not Inclined > Strongly Not Inclined. 

The Bar Raiser leads the debrief, and both they and the hiring manager have to agree for a hire to go through.

Once the final decision is reached, the recruiter will get in touch with you about the same within a few days.

In the United States, AWS includes the base salary range for the TAM roles in the job posting itself. The package includes sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs) and the final compensation is determined by taking into account several factors such as experience, qualifications, and location.

According to Levels.fyi, the median yearly total compensation for an AWS TAM in the US is $221,000.