How I became a Business Analyst at Amazon: My career story (part 1)

My first job in Tech company was at Amazon as a Business Analyst. Here’s my story on how I landed that job.

Where the dream started

My first job out of college was at Bank of America, where I worked on both marketing analytics and risk analytics. Working in Finance after the 2008 financial crisis was interesting… It was slow paced, highly regulated, and there was zero incentive to be creative.

The team I was on had one goal: help the business meet the regulatory requirements.

Boring.

I felt stuck.

Even though my title technically had “quant” in it. I wasn’t doing real technical work.

I hated my job.

I wanted to move into the Tech space, where people were solving real problems and were encouraged to innovate.

So one evening, after another uninspiring day of work, I set my mind on landing a job at a big tech firm. I set my eyes on my new goal: becoming a Data Scientist at Facebook.

First things first, I needed new skills

At Bank of America, I learned to code… but in SAS. But none of the jobs that I wanted asked for SAS -- every job wanted SQL and Python.

This meant spending my weekends and evenings learning to code. DataCamp became my best friend.

I remember feeling totally overwhelmed as I learned these coding languages. I hated sacrificing social time for after-work studying.

But one day, out of the blue, both SQL and Python started to make sense. And then, sacrifice felt worth it.

Applying for jobs

Next up, was applying for jobs. This was when things started to feel real. Up until now, my goal of landing a job in tech was just a pipe dream.

This was the first point, where I could face rejections and it scared me.

My key learning here was that referrals roughly 10x’d my chances of landing an interview, when compared to cold applications. So whenever possible, I reached out to my network for referrals. I reached out to friends and friends of friends for referrals. Oh I remember how awkward I felt asking peope for referrals… but alas it was necessary.

Preparing for and failing interviews

I actually had a pretty good hit rate when it came to interviews. In the 12 months I was job hunting, I think I interviewed for around 5 to 7 roles.

When it came to prep, I had no chill. I wanted to show up to every single interview over-prepared, knowing that I was leaving nothing on the tables.

I did mock interviews with friends. I practiced answering questions out loud while pacing around my apartment. I rehearsed stories from my time at Bank of America — especially the ones that showed initiative and ownership. I wasn’t doing technical work at BoA, but I wanted hiring managers to see that I had the passion. Like hey, “I might not be in tech yet, but I’ve got what it takes to thrive here.”

And, of course I kept working on my technical skills too — mainly SQL and Python. However, at this point, I was a lot more focused on interview preparation. Which meant that I was constantly looking online for practice interview questions, and then working on those.

Actually… that's part of why I ended up building Interview Master, my SQL interview prep platform. I wanted to make it easier for other people to prep, based on everything I learned while interviewing at Meta, Amazon, Google etc. Try it out for free!

Shoot for the stars, land among the clouds

It was a long journey to landing my job at Amazon. I started applying and interviewing in the Spring of 2016… but I didn’t get an offer until the Spring of 2017.

In that year, I was so full of self doubt. “Who do I think I am? Tech jobs are for actual smart people. I’m not that.” said the horrible voice in my head.

Like I mentioned earlier, my goal was to get a job in Data Science at Facebook.

But, unfortunately, that didn’t happen for me. Not this time around at least.

Of the many Data Science jobs that I interviewed for… I got 0 offers.

But I did get one offer (and one offer only) to be a Business Analyst at Amazon.

It wasn’t my dream job and it required me to take a 40% pay cut.

But I did it anyway.

I wanted to get out of Finance. I wanted to get my foot in the door in Tech.

So I took the job at Amazon as a Business Analyst.

Learn from my mistakes

If I had to boil down what I learned into 4 key lessons. It is this.

• Rejection sucks, but is part of the process. Landing a job is hard. You’ll get a lot of no’s. Sometimes the rejections are about you, sometimes they are not. But after every rejection, take time to reflect on the process: what could you have done better? Learn the lesson, and then keep it moving. Something bigger and better awaits.

• Learn SQL and Python. Even if your current job doesn’t use them. Spend some of your free time learning them—it’s one of the best long-term career investments you can make. Your future self will thank you.

• Be overprepared for interviews. Interviews are hard to come by, especially in the current market. Make the most of every single opportunity, by showing up overprepared. Have your behavioral stories squeaky-clean polished. Get way more SQL interview practice than you think you need. Do your take-home assignments with 110% effort. You got this.

• Sometimes a step back is actually a step forward. I took a 40% pay cut for this Business Analyst job at Amazon. But I regret nothing. Because that job was the stepping stone for eventually landing my dream role as a Data Scientist at Meta… More about this in a future newsletter.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my story. If you’re interested in how to become a Data Analyst in 2025, I have written about it in detail here.