Tell Me About a Time You Proposed an Idea That Was Much Larger Than Expected - Bar Raiser Evaluate

Evaluate These Two Answers

"Tell me about a time when you identified a problem outside your immediate team and took initiative to solve it with a big impact."

SDE 2⏱ 3 minAmazon Bar Raiser. LP evaluated explicitly. Content scored, not delivery.

Score BOTH answers on Ownership Signal, Action Specificity, and Quantified Impact BEFORE applying the full rubric.

If you scored Candidate A >40 total, your calibration is biased toward fluency. Bar Raisers ignore delivery and score content only.

Candidate A

During a routine sprint, my manager suggested I look into this since I had bandwidth. I discovered that the order processing system was occasionally dropping requests, causing delays. After discussing with the team, we identified a race condition in the queue handling logic and deployed a fix. This fix reduced order delays by 12%, improving customer satisfaction and preventing estimated revenue loss of $30K weekly. The issue was initially outside my team’s scope.

Fluent delivery, confident tone - most untrained evaluators score this high

Candidate B

I noticed during a cross-team review that the order processing system was dropping requests intermittently, which was impacting customer experience. Nobody had filed a ticket or raised this issue, so I proposed a cross-team solution involving both backend and frontend teams to redesign the queue handling logic. I managed trade-offs between speed and reliability, quantified the impact as a 15% reduction in order delays translating to an estimated $50K weekly revenue retention, and led the deployment of the fix. This initiative was outside my immediate team and required coordination across multiple stakeholders.

35-55 seconds longer - every extra second is signal-dense content

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Score Comparison

Dimension

Weight

Candidate A

Candidate B

structure star

15%

12

14

ownership signal

30%

1

28

action specificity

25%

10

24

quantified impact

20%

2

19

self awareness

10%

0

10

Total

25 No Hire

95 Strong Hire

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Auto-Fail Markers

manager-directed task assignment

"Candidate A - my manager suggested I look into this since I had bandwidth"

Ownership requires self-initiation. Manager-assigned = execution. Score 1 on ownership_signal (weight=30) = No Hire always.

collective language hiding individual contribution

"Candidate A - we identified a race condition in the queue handling logic"

Using 'we' hides individual ownership and initiative. Score 1 on ownership_signal (weight=30) = No Hire always.

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Bar Raiser Notes

Ownership weak - manager-directed; collective language; zero quantification; no clear individual initiative; No Hire.

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Fix-It Challenge

ownership phrasing

Before"my manager suggested I look into this since I had bandwidth"

→

After"I noticed the gap during a routine review. No ticket existed. Nobody had filed a bug or asked me to investigate. I decided to act because it impacted customer experience."

Shows self-initiation and ownership rather than manager assignment.

individual contribution clarity

Before"we identified a race condition in the queue handling logic"

→

After"I identified a race condition in the queue handling logic"

Highlights personal ownership and initiative instead of collective vague language.

quantify impact

Before"This fix reduced order delays by 12%, improving customer satisfaction and preventing estimated revenue loss of $30K weekly."

→

After"This fix reduced order delays by 12%, improving customer satisfaction and preventing estimated revenue loss of $30K weekly."

Quantifies impact and ties technical fix to business results.

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Coaching Notes

• Amazon’s Think Big requires candidates to demonstrate self-initiated ownership beyond their immediate scope, not manager-assigned tasks.
• Avoid collective pronouns like 'we' that obscure your individual contribution; explicitly state 'I' actions.
• Quantify impact with metrics and business outcomes to show the scale of your thinking and influence.
• Discuss trade-offs you managed to show depth of thinking and leadership.
• Explicitly mention when the problem was outside your team or no one else had addressed it to highlight initiative.

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Model Answer Guidance

A strong Think Big answer at Amazon starts with 'I noticed' or 'I discovered' to show self-initiation, followed by 'I proposed a cross-team solution' to demonstrate scope and leadership, then 'I quantified impact' with concrete metrics, and finally 'I managed trade-offs' to show thoughtful decision-making. Avoid phrases like 'my manager suggested' or collective 'we' that dilute ownership. Tie technical fixes to business impact and second-order effects.