Hello Reader,

There is a version of the AWS Solutions Architect interview living in people's heads right now that stopped existing months ago. If your prep is based on a friend's experience from last year, an old blog post, or a google search which gives few months older info, you are preparing for the wrong interview.

I am a former L7 Principal SA at AWS who have conducted hundreds of interview, and I have helped many of my students crack Big tech interviews, including at AWS. My student, Dan, just got into AWS as a Solutions Architect, switching from support background.

Here is the updated process.

A new gatekeeper appeared before the online assessment

Recruiters used to send candidates straight into the online assessment. That is no longer guaranteed. In a meaningful share of cases, the hiring manager now inserts themselves into the process earlier, running a short call before the assessment ever goes out.

Think of it as a vibe check. It runs 20 to 30 minutes, and the goal is simple: filter out candidates who clearly are not a fit before investing further time. Expect to talk through your background, explain why AWS specifically interests you, and answer at least one or two behavioral questions. It is not deeply technical, but it is not a formality either. Show up prepared like it is a real evaluation, because it is.

The online assessment stopped being multiple choice

This is the part almost nobody has updated their prep for. The old assessment was straightforward multiple choice, technical and behavioral questions with one clean correct answer. That format became easy to game with AI, since the test is non-proctored.

The new format presents a realistic customer scenario with three to five possible responses, and instead of picking the single right one, you rate each option on a scale of effectiveness. There is no single correct rating key. Your ratings just need to fall within an acceptable range across all responses.

This makes the assessment harder to cheat and genuinely tests judgment. Half the questions are technical, half are behavioral, rooted in Amazon's leadership principles. Neglecting either half is a fast way to get filtered out early.

The telephonic round rewards breadth, not just your resume

After the assessment comes a single-interviewer technical round, roughly 80 percent technical and 20 percent behavioral. The biggest misconception candidates carry into this round is that questions will map directly to their resume. They will not.

If you are interviewing for a specialist track, containers, security, whatever it may be, expect deeper questions in that specific area. But general breadth is still required everywhere else, because in the real job, customers do not limit their questions to what you have personally built before.

If you have never touched security but the interviewer asks a basic security question, "I haven't worked on that" is not an acceptable answer. You are expected to know the fundamentals of every core pillar, compute, storage, networking, security, Gen AI, even where you lack direct hands-on experience.

Expect one or two behavioral questions near the end, but the technical performance in this round carries the most weight toward advancing.

The loop is five rounds, and three of them are behavioral

Once you clear the phone screen, you move into the loop, a minimum of five rounds. In many cases that breaks down as three behavioral interviews plus one system design round plus one technical depth round tied to your specialization.

For senior or L6 candidates specifically, a sixth round, a dedicated presentation, sometimes gets added on top.

The behavioral rounds here are fundamentally different from the online assessment. No more hypothetical scenarios. You need real, specific examples pulled from your actual work history, told in STAR format, with measurable outcomes. Prepare your leadership principle stories in advance. Do not try to improvise them live.

The bar raiser lost their veto power

This is a structural shift worth knowing before you walk in. Previously, a single bar raiser could unilaterally block a hire even if every other interviewer was in favor. That is no longer how final decisions get made.

The hiring manager now holds the deciding vote. If you perform strongly with the hiring manager and in the veteran solutions architect round, and you clear one additional round cleanly, your odds of an offer are strong even if one interviewer was lukewarm.

That said, walk into every single round as though it is the one that decides everything. You will not know in the moment which interviewer's opinion carries the most weight in the final debrief.

The updated presentation round

When the presentation round is part of your loop, know that its format has changed too. It used to be primarily a hiring manager exercise focused on business framing, with light technical review. Now the full panel often sits in, which means your presentation needs to satisfy both the business narrative and the technical depth simultaneously.

You will be given advance notice and time to prepare, and you will present something you have actually built or led, not something invented on the spot. Do not default to pure architecture diagrams. Frame the business problem first, walk through your decisions and trade-offs, and be ready for questions from both technical and non-technical panelists in the room.

Switching into SA from another AWS role is possible but not easier

A common question is whether it is easier to get into AWS as a TAM or account manager and then switch internally to SA. The answer is that other roles are not easier. They are different. TAM to SA is the most common internal switch because of technical overlap, but you still need to be in your original role for at least one year before switching. The higher your level, the harder the switch becomes. At L7 principal SA, the bar is high enough that internal transfers at that level are rare.

If you have a strong technical background, go directly for the SA role. Do not take a longer path assuming it will be easier.

The one thing that separates candidates who get in

It is not certifications, or how good your resume is. It is the ability to delight the interviewer, and not meet. Your answers must have real-world angle, mixed with your ability to switch to executive level, or tactical level because SAs need this day in, day out.

Hope this was helpful. I wish you THE BEST on your next interview!

Keep learning and keep rocking 🚀,

Raj

P.S - If you want to get an AWS Solutions Architect job without coding or learning every AWS service, the 10th cohort for AWS SA Bootcamp is launching on Oct 17th, 12 PM ET (Eastern Time) via live workshop. This program now includes our updated GenAI curriculum. Please register below:

Here’s what you get when you show up LIVE:

1. The myths keeping most people stuck - and what actually gets you hired as an SA - I've conducted over 300 SA interviews, so I know what I'm talking about!
2. How GenAI is reshaping the SA and FDE roles, and the exact AI concepts (RAG, agents, MCP, eval etc.) you need to speak fluently in interviews.
3. A first look at my new product feature, built to help you practice real-world, interview-relevant hands-on work instead of copy-paste tutorials.
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