Everything You Need to Know About Amazon Internships
Amazon runs undergraduate and graduate internship programs in most of its teams and departments. Popular internship functions include sales, finance, operations, systems development and software engineering. Internships usually run 12-16 weeks between May and September on full time basis.
Graduate internships, for masters and Ph.D. candidates, are common in fields requiring a high level of focused expertise, such as AI or machine learning. Sometimes these can also take the format of 12 month part time placements.
To qualify for an internship you must have at least one term of full time academic studies left before graduation after the internship ends. Most undergraduate internships are targeted for students in their final year of study, although for some placements students in the last 2 year are considered. Masters and Ph.D. student internships are often available for any year but demand some experience in studying or working with specific fields.
Amazon internship salary rates vary with location and job type but are among the most generous in the industry. In addition to the Amazon internship salary, roles come with further perks such as free dinners, mentorship, team building events, and support for personal projects.
1. What you need to know
Applications for the summer internship programs commonly open in December of the previous year. That means if you’re interested in interning in Summer ’21, the time to be applying is the preceding Autumn/Winter (November to January).
A limited number of internship programs recruit throughout the year, especially in advanced science degree programs. These could be better for some candidates, however keep in mind the Summer internship program is usually an intake of several thousand students. There are mentorship, training, and personal development opportunities that come with being a part of an organised intake so if you can, consider the Summer placements.
In summer 2020 Amazon ran its internship program virtually with 8,000 students joining globally. They are prepared to do the same in 2021. Most tech companies run similar internship programs with the same timeframes, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Salesforce and others.
Amazon Internships for students enrolled in any Bachelor’s or Master’s degree
Business Development / Commercial Sales Internship
Program, Product and Project Management Internship
Marketing Internship
Operations Internship
HR & Recruitment Internship
Amazon Internships for students studying specified subjects
Business Analyst / Business Intelligence Analyst Internship - Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in any field, with experience using hard data and performing analysis
Software Development Engineer and Systems Engineer Internship - Bachelor’s or Master`s degree in computer science, computer engineering, information technology or related fields
Business Intelligence Engineer Internship - Bachelor’s in math, statistics, engineering or other equivalent quantitative discipline
Operations Finance Internship - any Bachelor’s degree with some business, finance and accounting knowledge
Product Design Engineer Internship - Bachelor’s or Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering
Amazon internships for Master’s & Ph.D. students with advanced topical knowledge
Applied Science Internship with placements in speech technologies, computer vision, machine learning, visual search, AI and Alexa - enrolled in Master’s or Ph.D. degree in engineering, computer science, machine learning, operations research, statistics, or related fields
Research Science Internship in speech technologies - enrolment in Master’s or Ph.D. degree in engineering, computer science, machine learning, operations research, statistics, or related fields
Applied Scientist Internship - students from Ph.D. programs in computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, or related fields, with specialisation in machine learning. Also require research experience in computer vision, deep learning, natural language processing, or broader machine learning
Operations Research Science Internship - enrolment in a Master’s or Ph.D. degree in operations research, industrial engineering, statistics, mathematics, economics, computer science, or similar technical field
2. How to get the role
Don’t think you ‘can’t’ get a job at Amazon. Many strong candidates over-focus on the reasons they won’t get the job and don’t try. Personal beliefs on not having enough experience, not going to the right school, not studying the right degree or not getting good enough grades are barriers candidates create for themselves. On the contrary, Amazon recruits based on cultural fit more than anything. Get to know the Amazon Leadership Principles and learn to demonstrate them. If you want to work at Amazon, follow these steps to get your application together.
Understand which Amazon internship opportunities you’re interested in. You can start with the Amazon student opportunities job board, or a focused board for your geography such as the EU. There’s also a portal for science students. Read about the types of programs they offer and develop and understanding of which are appealing to you. You may find Amazon internships on your university career centre job boards or at on-campus information sessions / career fairs. Amazon may have particular internship programs targeted at your school or degree program, and these may be invitation only so it’s worthwhile to understand these. Check out the Amazon Student Twitch channel, insider Instagram account, and Amazon’s own guidance on getting an internship.
Seek opportunities to engage with Amazon and ask questions. Attend Amazon information sessions, career fairs, or the equivalent virtual events. Listen to the scout presentations and engage with questions. If Amazon isn’t recruiting from your school directly, contact Amazon recruiters via LinkedIn. Reach out to past interns and current employees in teams you’re interested in. Use these sessions to better understand what Amazon is looking for and refine your understanding of what kind of internships you want. Try not to ask things you could have easily found out from their website. Instead use these opportunities to ask questions that will help you in your application and interview process. This shows you’re curious and action-oriented. Both are big Amazon values and this will set you apart in your applications.
Get to know the Amazon Leadership Principles. Developing an intuitive understanding of the Amazon leadership principles is an absolutely important step. Most candidates go as far as reading the Leadership Principles. Very few invest the necessary time to truly understand them. You’ll want to be able to differentiate each principle from the next (as some of them can appear similar to the untrained eye), grasp the meaning of some of the most difficult ones, and rationalise seemingly contradictory principles. Try to get to a point where you can explain them in your own words and understand the associated behaviours. Understanding the Amazon Leadership Principles will improve how you present yourself in the job application, your performance on the assessments, and your performance in the interviews.
Don’t think you won’t get hired just because you don’t have work experience. Amazon is interested in passionate, dedicated, self-motivated individuals. While your education and work experience do matter, equally important are the things you do outside of class. If you’re lacking in relevant work experience, focus on your other pursuits. The section below shows you to approach the application and interview when you don’t have work experience.
Don’t give up. Many candidates apply many times before they get hired. Amazon is one of the most sought after employers and that means they often have to turn away super strong candidates. Don’t take it personally. A rejection at any point only means ‘not now.’ If you’re serious, don’t give up and keep trying.
You can apply this process for internships at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Salesforce, and other.
3. What to do if you don’t have work experience
Amazon hires plenty of interns that have no previous work experience. Don’t be worried if you’re one of them. Instead, look to your pursuits outside of class. When you think about these experiences, zoom right into the detail. Don’t undervalue what you do.
Experiences to consider:
Personal projects, where you built, designed, wrote, created, or otherwise devised something. These can be academic, creative, or pure passion projects. They could be solo or group pursuits.
Extracurricular activities such as clubs, committees, volunteering and other campus organisations.
Sports, including team or squad sports, or individual sports.
The arts, including involvement in music, visual arts, or performing arts.
Personal learning projects like teaching yourself a skill, programming language, tool, instrument, or anything else.
Academic side projects, where you independently explore areas or topic inspired by your studies.
Amazon wants to understand how you engage your intellectual curiosity on your own initiative. They value continuous improvement, so you want to show them you don’t spend every weekend and evening binge watching Netflix.
When you consider your activities, ask yourself:
Why did you engage in these actives? Why did you choose this, over something else?
What traits, habits or behavioural patterns did these activities develop? What did you learn about yourself.
What have you learned from this activity about time management? Or self-discipline? Or delivering to a brief?
What about the challenges of taking actions with conflicting priorities and pressures?
What have you learned about speaking up with your ideas? Working with different points of view? Stepping up to actively contribute or improve something?
What did these experiences teach you about conflict? About making mistakes? About delivering?
Is there something else that stood out? If you’re short of ideas, closely review the Amazon Leadership Principles and look for experiences that demonstrate alignment with them.
4. Steps in the Amazon internship interview & application process
Apply via Amazon or university career centre. Even if you meet with campus recruiters, at some point you will be required to submit an application on the Amazon website.
Complete the online assessments. Most roles will include an online assessment step either at application, or shortly after. Assessments are typically online tests or simulations that cover behavioural situations, cultural fit, technical knowledge, numerical ability, and reasoning. You may have several assessments, depending on the role.The three most common assessments include:
Have the interviews. Questions will include a mix of general questions (Why amazon, tell me about yourself), Behavioural questions on the Amazon Leadership Principles (Tell me about a time you were 75% through a task and had to pivot strategy), and specialised questions (technical questions, case like questions, logic questions). Get to know the range of questions you can expect. Reflect on your experience with the Amazon mindset and focus on understanding the Leadership principles so you can focus on the best aspects.
Negotiate the offer. Amazon internship salary levels vary with the role and location. If you’re joining a large undergraduate intake program, the scope for negotiation will be narrow. However, if you’re an advanced degree student with specialised and sought after expertise, negotiating the internship salary is an important step.
Sidenote: The three most common assessments in the Amazon intern interview process
Amazon work style assessment: a multiple choice test where you choose between statements that describe you. Understanding the Amazon Leadership Principles is key for understanding what Amazon values in work style.
Work sample simulation: a problem solving, organisational and time managenent skills test based on a work situation you can expect in the role. Understanding tradeoffs inherent to the role you’re applying for is key to a strong performance.
Numerical and reasoning test: one hour virtual assessment on using and understanding numerical or statistical data. Watch out for common judgement errors. Examples of questions:
There are 4/7 as many yellow jelly beans in the jar as there are red jelly beans. What is the ratio of yellow jelly beans to red jelly beans in the jar?
Juliana is not certain of which pizza to order. She can have the medium or large size pizza, with thin or thick dough; replace the regular sauce with hot or garlic sauce; and add one topping if she'd like (mushrooms, onions, peppers or pepperoni). How many different pizzas can Juliana eventually order?
1.75 / (1 - 7/12)
5. Amazon wants you to succeed
Amazon wants to hire the very best. If you can show them that’s you, you make their job easy for them.
If you’re ready to step up your internship applications and interview preparation, our premium guides deconstruct the Amazon Leadership Principles into their fundamentals and demonstrate the principles in action using Amazon’s rich history. An essential resource to fast track your internship applications.
And check out our articles on how to answer the ‘Why Amazon’ interview question, the three types of Amazon interview questions, and effective company research.
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