Amazon Leadership Principle - Frugality
The Thought - “Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense”
What is “Frugality” at Amazon
Though the dictionary meaning of the term “Frugality” is being economical but in Amazon, it is about spending it right. It is not saving money by compromising on quality, it is about spending on high quality inputs that deliver output for a long term for our customers and benefits them by lowering their costs. As an input to spending wisely can also be invent & simplify, look for wastage in the process and invent solution to eliminate them so that the spend is yielding higher or long lasting output.
Accomplish more with less - Amazon Leadership Principle Frugality.
Frugality Amazon interview questions
Have you ever managed a project where you had limited resources, what was the outcome ?
Have you driven a process improvement project that resulted in eliminating waste or reducing cost ?
Have you ever made a trade off between cost and quality, what did you choose and why ?
Can you share an example where you had to ask for additional budget or resource to move faster on the project, how did you decide it was required ?
Interviewers expectations from your answers on “Frugality”
Are you someone who has a thorough understanding of how the business works, the various cost levers of a project?
Are you someone who always looks for ways to improve process efficiency by reducing waste ?
Do you have the ability to achieve more from less, evaluates multiple option before looking for additional funds or resources.
Must have in your answers on “Frugality”
Add elements from leadership principle - ownership to reflect your behaviour as an owner’s behaviour - owners are very careful in spending on things that give long term benefits.
Leverage examples from invent & simplify leadership principle, talk about the multiple process improvement projects you did and how you saved money by eliminating waste.
Add mechanics of dive deep leadership principle to portray that you understand the minute details of the process or project and is fully aware of which lever to influence to take control over unnecessary costs.