---
title: "The Amazon Bar Raiser Programme"
section: "Team"
sectionId: "team"
date: "2026-05"
---

*Source: [What Is a Bar Raiser at Amazon?](https://www.aboutamazon.co.uk/news/working-at-amazon/what-is-a-bar-raiser-at-amazon)*

## What is a Bar Raiser?

A Bar Raiser is an interviewer brought into Amazon's hiring process as an objective third party. They hold a position **outside the team that is hiring** — so they evaluate candidates without the bias of day-to-day proximity or team pressure.

The name matters. When Amazon launched the programme in 1999, it was called the "barkeeper programme" — implying the job was to *maintain* the standard. They changed it because the goal is actually to *raise* the bar with every hire:

> **Every person hired should be better than 50% of those currently in similar roles.**

If that standard isn't met, the hire doesn't happen.

## What Bar Raisers do

Bar Raisers are experienced Amazon interviewers, nominated into the programme and trained extensively on top of their regular roles. Their three responsibilities in every hiring loop:

1. **Assess the candidate** for the specific role and for long-term potential at the company
2. **Ensure a fair and open assessment** across every member of the interview panel
3. **Support the process** — helping hiring managers prepare, guiding questions toward the relevant competencies, and providing written feedback

The Bar Raiser is the steward of Amazon's 14 Leadership Principles throughout the process. Not all principles apply equally to every role — Bar Raisers work with the hiring team to identify which ones the candidate must *naturally index* on, versus which can be developed over time.

## Why it works

The outside perspective is the mechanism. A Bar Raiser who isn't embedded in the team sees things that a direct manager or colleague would miss — both strengths and blind spots. Their job is to ask: *is this person the best long-term fit, not just the easiest person to onboard right now?*

Amazon's explicit framing: **hire well, not quickly.** Teams routinely slow down or restart a search rather than fill a seat with the wrong person.

## Applying this at a startup

You won't have a formal Bar Raiser programme at 5 or 10 people — but the underlying principle translates directly:

- Bring someone from outside the hiring team into every interview loop
- Their job is specifically to evaluate cultural fit and long-term potential, not just the role's technical requirements
- Their vote carries real weight — if they have serious reservations, that's not just noise

At LAUNCH, this looks like having someone from ops sit in on interviews for content and podcast roles. The cross-functional perspective surfaces what the direct team, through familiarity and enthusiasm, might rationalise away.

See [Which Positions to Hire First](/startup-wiki/team-which-positions-to-hire-first) for how the Bar Raiser principle fits into early-stage hiring sequencing, and [Building Culture](/startup-wiki/team-building-culture) for how it reinforces cultural consistency as the team grows.