Being Amazonian: Numbers Beat Stories

Not Being “Amazonian” Makes You Not Valued by Amazon hiring managers during interviews.

Being Amazonian (a person who works for Amazon) means many peculiar things but one thing stands out: be specific and give numbers!

If a hiring manager in an Amazon job interview asks you: “Tell me about a problem you solved” and you answer: “I solved this problem in this way and everyone was happy,” you fail!

You have to think and answer like an Amazonian. You should say something like:

I identified the problem based on X days analysis of data, covering the period from X to X date. I worked with X team members over X number of days. I defined a metric: X/X = Y to measure results. The outcome was X% better than the initial baseline, because I targeted improvement of X%.

Amazonians love numbers. They love being specific. That’s how you get the job and once you are in, your mindset will be shifted towards this.

In an Amazon interview, if you are not specific and don’t give numbers, you are perceived as a generalist not an expert. Why? Because only people who deep dive and are true domain experts know the numbers, they define the metrics, and pay attention to the details of what they’ve done.

I have seen candidates who could go deep and provide numbers, but because they didn’t understand this Amazonian principle of specificity, they failed.

Now apply it everywhere in your life. Change your mindset. Live like an Amazonian: ask for numbers, be specific. It will magically develop your knowledge.

Even with AI like ChatGPT or Grok don’t just ask, “What is Nano Banana by Google?” and be done. Ask instead:

What is the success rate of Nano Banana? Why is it successful, and by how many % compared to competitors? What metric is used for this comparison? What is the logic behind it and how is it calculated? What percent improvement should we expect in tools like veo 3 year over year?

That’s how you extract real value.

Be Amazonian even if you don’t work at Amazon.