1. What is a Data Analyst at Amplify?

At Amplify, a Data Analyst does much more than query databases; you act as a translator between complex educational data and actionable insights that improve learning outcomes for millions of K–12 students. Amplify is a pioneer in next-generation curriculum and assessment, and data is the backbone of its ability to personalize instruction. In this role, you will join teams that are tackling some of the toughest problems in education using a modern technology stack.

You will work at the intersection of product, engineering, and business strategy. Whether you are analyzing student performance trends to help teachers identify learning gaps, or building dashboards to help the sales team forecast logistics, your work has a direct impact. You are expected to treat students and educators as your ultimate customers, ensuring that the data models and narratives you build are accurate, secure, and meaningful.

This position offers a unique blend of technical rigor and mission-driven purpose. You will likely work within a modern data stack—including Snowflake, dbt, and Looker—to ingest, transform, and visualize data. Unlike roles where you might work in isolation, data analysts at Amplify are deeply embedded in the "agile rituals" of the team, collaborating closely with data scientists and engineers to tell stories that drive product design and business efficiency.

2. Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparation for Amplify requires a shift in mindset: you need to demonstrate technical fluency while proving you care deeply about the "why" behind the data. The interviewers are looking for candidates who can navigate the nuances of educational data (such as student mobility or school year rollovers) while maintaining engineering best practices.

Technical Fluency & Modern Stack Proficiency You must demonstrate strong SQL skills, specifically with window functions, CTEs, and complex joins. Because Amplify relies heavily on dbt (data build tool) and Snowflake, familiarity with code-based ETL frameworks and dimensional data modeling (Kimball) is a major differentiator. You should be comfortable discussing how you version control your analytics code using Git.

Analytical Storytelling Amplify places a high value on "narratives." It is not enough to produce a number; you must explain what that number means for a school principal, a teacher, or a sales executive. You will be evaluated on your ability to use tools like Looker or Tableau to turn raw data into intuitive, action-oriented dashboards that answer specific business questions.

Domain Empathy & Problem Solving You will face scenarios specific to the education industry. Interviewers assess whether you can anticipate the complexities of K-12 data, such as privacy regulations or the cyclical nature of the school year. They want to see that you can respect data security while creating models that help educators understand how students are learning.

Collaboration in Agile Environments The job descriptions highlight participation in "agile rituals" like story splitting and retrospectives. You need to show that you can work cross-functionally, communicating technical concepts to non-technical partners in Marketing, Sales, or Operations without losing clarity or accuracy.

3. Interview Process Overview

The interview process at Amplify is structured to evaluate both your technical capabilities and your alignment with their mission-driven culture. It typically begins with a recruiter screen to discuss your background and interest in EdTech. If you pass this stage, you will move to a technical screen with a hiring manager or a senior data team member. This conversation usually focuses on your past projects, your familiarity with their specific stack (SQL, dbt, Looker), and your approach to data problems.

Following the screens, candidates often face a skills assessment. This may take the form of a take-home assignment or a live coding session. You should expect to write SQL to solve a business problem, potentially involving data transformation or modeling tasks that mimic real-world Amplify scenarios. The final stage is a virtual onsite panel. This series of interviews will dive deeper into your technical skills, your experience with data visualization, and behavioral questions regarding how you handle ambiguity, deadlines, and cross-team collaboration.

Throughout the process, Amplify emphasizes a supportive but rigorous environment. Interviewers are generally looking for "inquisitive choices" in your tech stack decisions and a willingness to learn. They value candidates who ask thoughtful questions about the data architecture and the educational impact of the products.

This timeline illustrates the typical progression from the initial application to the final offer. Use this to pace your preparation: ensure your SQL and dbt concepts are sharp before the technical screen, and reserve your behavioral stories and "mission-fit" preparation for the final panel rounds.

4. Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

Based on job descriptions and the modern data stack Amplify uses, the evaluation is heavily weighted toward modern analytics engineering practices and business intelligence.

SQL and Data Transformation

This is the core of the evaluation. You will be tested on your ability to write clean, performant SQL. Amplify specifically mentions the use of CTEs (Common Table Expressions), window functions, and pivots. You need to show you can manipulate data within a cloud data warehouse environment.

Be ready to go over:

• Advanced SQL logic: Writing queries that handle complex aggregations or moving averages (e.g., student performance over time).
• dbt (data build tool): Explaining how you build modular data models, manage ref() dependencies, and handle incremental models.
• Data Cleaning: Strategies for handling messy data, such as inconsistent school names or duplicate student records.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "How would you calculate the month-over-month retention rate of students using a specific app using SQL?"
• "Describe how you would structure a dbt model to transform raw event logs into a 'fact_student_activity' table."

Data Modeling & Architecture

Amplify uses Snowflake and follows Kimball dimensional modeling principles. You will be evaluated on your ability to design schemas that are efficient for reporting.

Be ready to go over:

• Star Schema Design: Identifying Fact vs. Dimension tables in an educational context (e.g., Fact: Assessment Scores, Dimension: School/District).
• Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD): Handling nuances like a student moving from one school to another mid-year.
• ELT Pipelines: Understanding the flow from ingestion (Fivetran) to transformation (dbt) to visualization.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Design a data model to track student progress through a curriculum. How do you handle a student changing classes?"
• "What are the trade-offs between a wide table and a star schema for this specific reporting use case?"

Visualization and Business Intelligence

The ability to build "cohesive and action-oriented" dashboards in Looker or Tableau is critical. You are evaluated on design choices and how well your visualizations answer the user's core question.

Be ready to go over:

• Dashboard Design: Choosing the right chart type for the data (e.g., avoiding pie charts for complex comparisons).
• LookML (if using Looker): Defining dimensions and measures in a semantic layer.
• Metric Definition: How you define "active user" or "churn" and ensure it aligns with business goals.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "A school administrator wants to know which teachers are using the platform most effectively. What metrics do you show them and how do you visualize it?"
• "How would you design a dashboard for the Sales team to track pipeline forecasting?"

Domain Knowledge & Soft Skills

You must demonstrate an ability to communicate with non-technical stakeholders and manage projects in an agile environment.

Be ready to go over:

• Stakeholder Management: How you handle requests for "more data" when the request isn't clearly defined.
• Agile Rituals: Experience with tickets (Jira), sprints, and code reviews.
• Data Integrity: Ensuring compliance with privacy standards (PII) which is massive in EdTech.

5. Key Responsibilities

As a Data Analyst at Amplify, your day-to-day work revolves around empowering teams to make sense of their data. You will spend a significant portion of your time building and maintaining ELT pipelines. This involves writing SQL transformations (often in dbt) to funnel data into fact and dimensional marts within Snowflake. You aren't just reading data; you are engineering the datasets that serve as the single source of truth for the company.

Collaboration is a major component of the role. You will work closely with Product Managers to measure the impact of design changes on student engagement, and with Sales and Finance to audit data and forecast revenue. For example, you might analyze cross-selling patterns to help the sales team identify new opportunities, or you might track supply chain metrics to ensure educational materials arrive at schools on time.

You are also responsible for the "last mile" of analytics: visualization. You will build dashboards in Looker or Tableau that allow school administrators to understand usage trends or help internal executives monitor Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). Beyond the technical tasks, you will participate in code reviews, mentor other team members, and contribute to documentation to ensure the data ecosystem remains clean and scalable.

6. Role Requirements & Qualifications

Amplify looks for a specific blend of modern data engineering skills and analytical acumen.

Must-Have Technical Skills:

• Advanced SQL: Proficiency with complex joins, subqueries, window functions, and CTEs is non-negotiable.
• Data Transformation: Experience with dbt (creating models, testing, documentation) is highly preferred and central to their workflow.
• Visualization: Proven ability to build dashboards in Looker (preferred) or Tableau.
• Cloud Warehousing: Experience working with Snowflake, Redshift, or BigQuery.
• Version Control: Fluency in Git and GitHub for managing code and collaborating on pull requests.

Experience & Soft Skills:

• Experience Level: Typically 3–5+ years of relevant experience for mid-to-senior roles.
• Agile Experience: Familiarity with working in sprints, estimating stories, and using project management tools.
• Communication: The ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical partners (Sales, Marketing, Educators).
• Data Modeling: Understanding of Kimball dimensional design (Facts and Dimensions).

Nice-to-Have Skills:

• Python: For more advanced data analysis or scripting tasks.
• EdTech Background: Familiarity with industry standards like Caliper Analytics, EdFi, or xAPI.
• Orchestration: Experience with tools like Airflow or Fivetran.

7. Common Interview Questions

These questions reflect the technical and behavioral themes found in Amplify's job descriptions and general industry standards for this specific tech stack.

SQL & Data Engineering

• "Write a query to find the top 3 performing students in each class based on their assessment scores." (Tests window functions/ranking).
• "How would you debug a dbt model that is failing on an incremental run?"
• "Explain the difference between a CTE and a temporary table. When would you use one over the other in Snowflake?"
• "How do you handle duplicate records in a source table when building a dimension table?"
• "Describe a complex data transformation pipeline you built. How did you ensure data quality?"

Analytical Case Studies

• "We noticed a drop in daily active users for our math app last week. How would you investigate the cause?"
• "A Product Manager wants to know if a new feature improved student learning. What metrics would you define, and how would you measure success?"
• "How would you model data to track a sales pipeline that changes stages over time?"
• "Design a dashboard for a School District Superintendent. What are the 3 most important KPIs they need to see?"

Behavioral & Collaboration

• "Tell me about a time you had to explain a technical data limitation to a non-technical stakeholder. How did you handle it?"
• "Describe a time you found a bug in a production dataset. How did you fix it and communicate the impact?"
• "How do you prioritize your work when you have urgent requests from both Finance and Product teams?"
• "Tell me about a time you disagreed with a team member about a data modeling decision. How did you resolve it?"

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the primary tech stack for Data Analysts at Amplify? Amplify relies heavily on a modern data stack. The core tools you should be familiar with are Snowflake for data warehousing, dbt for transformation and modeling, and Looker (and sometimes Tableau) for visualization. Python and Airflow are also used for orchestration and advanced analysis.

Q: How much domain knowledge in education do I need? While prior experience in EdTech is a "nice-to-have," it is not strictly required. However, you must demonstrate domain empathy. You should be able to quickly grasp concepts like school years, districts, and student privacy (PII) during the interview process. Showing you care about the mission is critical.

Q: Is this role remote? The job postings list Brooklyn, NY as the location, but Amplify often supports hybrid or remote arrangements for technical roles. You should clarify the specific expectations for your team with the recruiter early in the process.

Q: What is the difference between the "Data Analyst" and "Analytics Engineer" roles at Amplify? There is significant overlap. The Analytics Engineer role leans more heavily into the "T" in ELT—building dbt models, managing pipelines, and ensuring code quality. The Senior Data Analyst role may focus slightly more on the "narrative"—using those models to drive business strategy, finance, and product insights. However, both roles require strong SQL and dbt skills.

Q: How does Amplify handle work-life balance? Amplify generally has a reputation for good work-life balance (rated 4.1/5 on blind platforms). The culture is described as mission-driven and collaborative, with a focus on sustainable working hours compared to high-growth startups or finance sectors.

9. Other General Tips

Master the "Modern Data Stack" Narrative Amplify is not a legacy shop running stored procedures on an on-prem server. They are proud of their modern infrastructure (Snowflake/dbt). Frame your answers to show you understand why these tools are used—scalability, version control, and modularity. If you have experience migrating from legacy systems to this stack, highlight it.

Focus on the "Student" as the End User Even if you are interviewing for a role supporting the Finance or Sales team, remember that Amplify's ultimate goal is education. When asked about impact, try to connect your work back to the classroom. For example, "Better sales forecasting ensures schools get their materials on time, which means students can start learning on day one."

Demonstrate "Code Quality" in Analytics Amplify treats data as code. Mention your experience with Pull Requests (PRs), code reviews, and writing documentation. They want to know that you write SQL that is readable, reusable, and tested—not just queries that "work" once and are forgotten.

Prepare for "Ambiguity" Education data is messy. Students change names, move districts, or have gaps in attendance. Show that you are not afraid of messy data and have strategies to clean, standardize, and make sense of it without getting stuck.

10. Summary & Next Steps

Becoming a Data Analyst at Amplify is an opportunity to use high-end technical skills for a socially impactful cause. You will be challenged to build robust data pipelines and intuitive dashboards that help educators and internal teams navigate the complexities of K-12 education. The role demands a candidate who is as comfortable inside a dbt model as they are presenting insights to a product manager.

To succeed, focus your preparation on SQL fluency, dimensional modeling, and data storytelling. Review the concepts of the modern data stack (Snowflake/dbt/Looker) and be ready to discuss how you apply software engineering best practices to analytics. If you can demonstrate that you are a technical problem solver who cares deeply about student outcomes, you will be a strong contender.

The salary data above provides a baseline for the role. Note that "Data Analyst" titles at Amplify can range from operational roles (Data Integrity) to highly technical roles (Analytics Engineer). Ensure you understand which "band" your specific opening falls into, as the technical requirements and compensation vary significantly between the operational and engineering-focused tracks.

Good luck! With the right mix of technical prep and mission alignment, you are well on your way to joining the team.