in this video you will get a better understanding of how to prep for an amazon interview for our public sector aws infrastructure roles and how to best translate your prior experience in the military or government to amazon's interview process welcome we will be talking about four key areas aws our infrastructure roles our culture and our behavioral style interview process so let's dive in amazon web services or aws is a dynamic growing business unit within amazon.com aws pioneered cloud computing in 2006 creating cloud infrastructure that allows you to securely build and innovate faster we are continuously innovating the design and systems of our data centers to protect them from man-made and natural risks then we implement controls build automated systems and undergo third-party audits to confirm security and compliance as a result the most highly regulated organizations in the world trust aws every day in fact we are bringing commercial cloud technology to the u.s intelligence community to support this community aws must meet the highest levels of security and often operate in air-gapped environments aws brings in cutting-edge products and services based on its commercial innovation for intelligence community organizations to utilize as technology grows and changes this gives our government access to the technology required to stay ahead of threats and keep our nation safe within the data center environment there are three primary role types data center technicians engineering operations technicians and logistics professionals the job description will give you the basic qualifications that are required for the role and the preferred qualifications give you some insight into what the hiring managers are also looking for take some time to reflect upon how your experiences match both the basic qualifications and preferred [Music] amazonians come from all sorts of backgrounds experiences and expertise we build new systems challenge the status quo and work relentlessly to design products and innovations that make life easier for millions of customers and sellers all over the world amazon is built on the concept of a virtuous cycle focused on the customer throughout the years since we started we've built hundreds of new services onboarded millions of customers and expanded operations around the globe yet one thing has stayed consistent our leadership principles amazon's leadership principles are a set of standards all amazonians aspire to every day they are ingrained in our culture employees love them because they clearly explain the kinds of behaviors we value as aws employees we rarely have a day go by without hearing our leadership principles referenced as a shorthand for doing the right thing they are a universal approach to how we work here one of the best approaches for interviewing at amazon is to use the star method situation task action and results these will be questions like tell me about a time when you had to go out of the way to help a customer what did you do why did it matter and what were the results your time will be well spent preparing for these types of questions amazon does a mix of both technical and behavioral interviewing technical acumen is important to our continued success however we also know that cultural fit is just as important that is why the star method is so helpful as a strategy each element of star is directly correlated to an amazon leadership principle by ensuring you cover all of the areas of star you will be able to give your interviewer four data points on your alignment to the amazon leadership principles think of the star method as not just a format but really a strategy we are a data driven company and data informs the interviewer let's break down elements of situation task action and result for behavioral interviewing we've noticed that some candidates with a background in the military or in the government tend to see the word situation but think the word mission and may describe a constrained environment where people are directed to take specific actions at a certain time and within certain rules of engagement that may lead you to respond with a more generic mission accomplished as your results the problem is your interviewer may not be able to get data on what you would have done in the absence of all those constraints so instead of starting your response with a mission statement we recommend that you think of a situation as the customer's problem that you were trying to solve and that's going to do two things for you first it is going to get rid of that need to provide any context on things that you may not be able to speak to on your resume like why you were in a country that one time you can't talk about by starting with a customer's technical problem as your situation you're getting rid of the need for that background context you do not need to tell us what the geopolitical environment was who the customer was what the temperature was or what part of the world you were in instead drill down on how you provided value to that customer secondly by starting with a customer's problem your interviewer is going to hear you working your way backwards starting with a customer and that is amazonian yes that is a word we use it is also the beginning of a data point on the amazon leadership principle of customer obsession that you're going to build on throughout the remainder of your response using the star method now comes ownership tell us how you took on solving that customer's problem and all the things that you knew you would need to do it will give your interviewer some insights into how you problem solve which is helpful when interviewing for any role at amazon now for the action section this is where you have an opportunity to really shine because you will be talking through all of the actions that you took to solve this customer's problem not the actions that someone else did or asked you to do emphasizing your own bias for action which is another leadership principle by the time you get to the results your example can be when you solved the customer's problem or when you failed in the amazon culture it's okay to fail because we learn from failure you will want to articulate what you learned and what you would have done better had you had the chance to do it again the results portion of the interview is where you describe your impact or lesson learned remember capturing specific data is important in your interview and using star will ensure your interviewer has the data to make an informed decision we are excited you will be entering this journey with us i hope this has been helpful as our goal is to inform and prepare you to be a successful candidate you will always have a live person to help support you and answer additional questions throughout the process best of luck here's a link to our interview prep page on amazon.jobs you