Amazon Bar Raiser Myths — What Candidates Get Wrong

🌟 I was an Amazon Bar Raiser.

I’ve helped many candidates prepare for Amazon interviews, and their most frequent questions revolve around this mysterious role. This is the first of two posts where I’ll tackle Amazon interview misconceptions.

What’s a Bar Raiser?

It’s a volunteer, extracurricular role within Amazon — crucial to maintaining high hiring standards while ensuring a positive candidate experience. If you’re interviewing with Amazon, one of your interviewers will be a Bar Raiser: someone with a lot of interviewing experience who is passionate about best practices.

Here are the only things you can assume about them:

1. They work on a different team than the one you’re interviewing to join.
2. For you to get an offer, they must agree with the hiring manager that you “raise the bar” for Amazon.
3. After your interviews they will lead the debrief meeting, guiding everyone to a final hiring decision.

That’s it. Beyond these constants, there’s a lot of misinformation that creates unnecessary anxiety for candidates. Let’s clear that up.

Myth #1 — It’s important that you know which of your interviewers is the Bar Raiser

Not true. You don’t need to do anything special for the Bar Raiser. All of your interviewers have unique competencies they’re evaluating you on, and the Bar Raiser’s assigned competencies are no more important than the others.

Myth #2 — The Bar Raiser won’t know your role, so you can figure out who they are because they’ll only ask behavioral questions

Don’t count on this. The Bar Raiser might know your role well. If you’re a coder, they might be the one asking data structures and algorithms. If you’re a product manager, they might be the one asking you to analyze a growth funnel.

Myth #3 — You have to impress the Bar Raiser more than your other interviewers

Nope. The Bar Raiser will aggregate feedback from all interviewers, ensuring a holistic decision. They’ll consider input from all sessions, not just their own, and will instruct other interviewers to do the same.

Myth #4 — If you tank the Bar Raiser interview, you simply won’t get an offer

The Bar Raiser does have veto power on your offer — as does the hiring manager — but they’ll only cast their vote after feedback and discussion with all interviewers. I’ve seen many minds changed during those discussions, which is a good thing.

Myth #5 — You’ll know who the Bar Raiser is

Even after the interviews, you probably won’t. And that’s fine.

Bottom line

Passing the Amazon interview is difficult enough; no need to worry about things that won’t affect your chances. Don’t sweat the Bar Raiser — put your prep energy into the things that actually matter, like a solid behavioral interview prep plan.

Fun fact: because they’re so focused on providing a positive candidate experience, the Bar Raiser might just be the least intimidating person you meet.

Part 2 will dive into other Amazon interview myths. Got questions about your upcoming interview? Contact me.