Amazon Solutions Architect Interview Questions (2026 Guide)
Amazon Solutions Architect interviews (both customer-facing AWS SA roles and internal SA roles) combine deep AWS service knowledge with Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles. Expect a phone screen on core AWS services (compute, storage, networking, security) followed by an onsite/virtual loop with a system design round, a deep-dive technical round on a past architecture you built, and 2-3 behavioral rounds scored against specific Leadership Principles like Customer Obsession, Ownership, and Dive Deep, per widely reported candidate accounts on Glassdoor and Amazon's own interview prep materials.
Interview process at a glance
| Round | Focus / Example Question Type | Difficulty | Prep Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recruiter/technical phone screen | AWS services fundamentals (VPC, IAM, EC2, S3, RDS), basic architecture scenario | Easy–Medium | 3-5 hrs |
| System design (onsite) | Design a scalable, fault-tolerant solution (e.g., multi-region web app) on AWS | Hard | 10-15 hrs |
| Deep dive / bar raiser | Walk through a real architecture you designed end-to-end; trade-offs and failure modes | Hard | 5-8 hrs |
| Leadership Principles (2-3 rounds) | STAR-format stories mapped to Ownership, Customer Obsession, Dive Deep, Bias for Action | Medium | 8-10 hrs |
Grounded in publicly reported candidate interview experiences (Glassdoor, Exponent, Interview Kickstart) and Amazon's published Leadership Principles interview framework.
FAQs
How many rounds does the Amazon Solutions Architect interview have?
Typically a recruiter screen, a technical phone screen, then a 4-5 round virtual or onsite loop covering system design, a technical deep dive, and 2-3 Leadership Principle behavioral interviews, one of which is usually run by a trained 'bar raiser.'
Do I need AWS certifications to pass?
Certifications aren't required but strongly recommended for customer-facing roles; interviewers expect certification-level fluency in core services (compute, storage, networking, IAM) regardless of whether you hold the badge.
What is the Amazon 'bar raiser' round?
A bar raiser is an interviewer from outside the hiring team, trained to hold a consistent hiring standard. Their round usually blends a Leadership Principles deep dive with a technical or design discussion, and they hold veto power on hiring decisions.
What's the hardest part of the loop?
Most candidates report the live system design whiteboard and the 'deep dive' on their own past project as hardest, since Amazon interviewers probe relentlessly on trade-offs, failure scenarios, and cost/performance decisions rather than accepting a surface-level design.
How should I prepare Leadership Principles stories?
Prepare 8-10 STAR stories from your own experience, each mappable to 2-3 different principles, since interviewers frequently ask follow-up 'tell me about a time' questions that pivot mid-answer to a different principle.
Related interview guides
- Amazon Software Engineer Interview Questions
- Amazon DevOps Engineer Interview Questions
- Amazon Data Engineer Interview Questions
- Google Cloud Solutions Architect Interview Questions
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By Pinal Dave | Last updated: 2026-08-03
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