AWS Interview Questions and Answers for Freshers in 2026: Top 25 Questions
Cloud computing has changed how organizations build, deploy, and operate applications. Instead of maintaining all infrastructure on physical servers, businesses can use cloud services to provision computing power, store data, manage networks, and monitor applications.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the major cloud platforms used for web applications, enterprise systems, analytics, automation, and infrastructure management.
If you are preparing for an AWS interview in 2026, understanding the core services and their use cases is a valuable starting point.
In this Expectin guide, we cover 25 AWS interview questions and answers to help freshers and aspiring Cloud Engineers prepare for entry-level opportunities.
1. What Is AWS?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud computing platform that provides services for computing, storage, networking, databases, security, analytics, and application deployment.
Instead of purchasing and maintaining all the physical infrastructure themselves, organizations can provision cloud resources according to their requirements.
Common AWS services include:
Amazon EC2 for virtual servers
Amazon S3 for object storage
AWS IAM for identity and access management
Amazon VPC for virtual networking
AWS Lambda for serverless computing
Amazon RDS for managed relational databases
Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring and observability
The services selected depend on the application's architecture, security requirements, workload, and budget.
2. What Is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing provides access to computing resources over a network, usually on demand.
Common cloud service models include:
IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service, such as virtual machines and networking.
PaaS: Platform as a Service, where the provider manages more of the underlying platform.
SaaS: Software as a Service, where users access a complete application.
Cloud environments can also be categorized as public, private, or hybrid, depending on how the infrastructure is deployed and managed.
3. What Is Amazon EC2?
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) provides virtual servers called instances.
EC2 can be used to host web applications, APIs, background workers, and other workloads.
Important EC2 concepts include:
Amazon Machine Images (AMIs)
Instance types
Key pairs and access methods
Security groups
EBS volumes
Elastic IP addresses
User data and instance metadata
Monitoring and instance status checks
For example, a company might run a web application on EC2 and use a load balancer to distribute incoming traffic across multiple instances.
4. What Is Amazon S3?
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is an object storage service.
It stores objects inside buckets and is commonly used for documents, images, backups, application assets, logs, and data archives.
Important concepts include:
Buckets and objects
Bucket policies
IAM permissions
Versioning
Lifecycle rules
Encryption
Access logging and monitoring
Storage classes
S3 is not a traditional block-storage disk. Applications access objects through supported APIs and interfaces.
5. What Is AWS IAM?
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) controls access to AWS resources.
IAM supports users, groups, roles, and policies.
Important security practices include:
Granting only the permissions required
Using IAM roles for supported workloads
Avoiding hardcoded credentials
Enabling multifactor authentication where appropriate
Reviewing unused permissions
Protecting and rotating credentials when necessary
For example, an EC2 application can use an attached IAM role to access a specific S3 bucket without storing long-lived AWS access keys in its source code.
6. What Is an Amazon VPC?
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) provides a logically isolated network for AWS resources.
A VPC can include subnets, route tables, gateways, and network security controls.
Common components include:
Public and private subnets
Route tables
Internet gateways
NAT gateways
Security groups
Network ACLs
VPC endpoints
A public subnet commonly has a route to an internet gateway. A private subnet does not have a direct route to an internet gateway, although outbound connectivity can be provided through a NAT gateway or other supported architecture.
7. What Is the Difference Between a Security Group and a Network ACL?
Security groups and network access control lists (network ACLs) help control network traffic, but they work differently.
Security groups:
Are associated with supported resources or network interfaces.
Are stateful, so response traffic for allowed connections is automatically permitted.
Support allow rules.
Network ACLs:
Are associated with subnets.
Are stateless, so inbound and outbound rules must account for return traffic.
Support allow and deny rules.
Both should be configured according to the application's actual network requirements.
8. What Is an Availability Zone?
An Availability Zone (AZ) is an isolated location within an AWS Region, designed to support workload resilience.
A Region contains multiple Availability Zones.
Deploying application components across multiple Availability Zones can improve availability and resilience when a single zone experiences a problem.
However, high availability also requires suitable architecture, health checks, data replication, and recovery planning.
9. What Is an AWS Region?
An AWS Region is a separate geographic area where AWS operates infrastructure.
Choosing a Region can affect latency, service availability, regulatory requirements, disaster recovery, and cost.
Organizations should choose Regions based on business requirements, data residency obligations, availability of required services, and expected user locations.
10. What Is Elastic Load Balancing?
Elastic Load Balancing distributes incoming traffic across supported targets, such as EC2 instances or containers.
Common load balancer types include:
Application Load Balancer (ALB): Supports HTTP and HTTPS traffic, host-based routing, and path-based routing.
Network Load Balancer (NLB): Designed for high-performance Layer 4 traffic handling.
Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB): Supports deploying and scaling virtual network appliances.
A load balancer can perform health checks and route traffic to healthy targets according to its configuration.
11. What Is Auto Scaling?
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling can automatically adjust the number of EC2 instances in a group according to configured policies and desired capacity.
It supports:
Maintaining a desired number of instances
Scaling in response to demand
Replacing unhealthy instances
Using launch templates
Integrating with load balancers
Auto Scaling can help applications handle changing demand, but scaling policies must be configured and tested carefully.
12. What Is AWS Lambda?
AWS Lambda is a serverless compute service that runs code in response to supported events.
Developers do not manage the underlying servers directly.
Lambda can be used for:
Processing uploaded files
Responding to API requests
Automating scheduled tasks
Processing messages
Running event-driven integrations
Serverless does not mean that infrastructure is absent. It means the cloud provider manages much of the underlying execution environment.
13. What Is Amazon RDS?
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is a managed service for supported relational database engines.
It simplifies many operational tasks, including provisioning, backups, patching options, and monitoring.
RDS supports multiple database engines, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server, subject to current service and engine availability.
The application team remains responsible for database design, query performance, permissions, and appropriate operational configuration.
14. What Is the Difference Between RDS and DynamoDB?
Amazon RDS is a managed relational database service for supported SQL database engines.
Amazon DynamoDB is a managed NoSQL database that supports key-value and document data models.
Use RDS when relational structures, SQL queries, and relational database capabilities fit the workload.
Use DynamoDB when its data model, access patterns, scalability characteristics, and operational model fit the application.
The best choice depends on data relationships, query requirements, consistency needs, performance expectations, and cost.
15. What Is Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch provides monitoring and observability capabilities for AWS resources and applications.
It supports metrics, logs, alarms, dashboards, and other monitoring features.
CloudWatch can help teams:
Track CPU utilization and other metrics
Collect application and system logs
Create alarms based on defined conditions
Investigate operational problems
Monitor service behavior over time
Effective monitoring requires meaningful metrics, useful log fields, appropriate thresholds, and alerting that helps people take action.
16. What Is AWS CloudTrail?
AWS CloudTrail records supported account and API activity in AWS.
It can help organizations investigate which actions were performed, which identity performed them, and when they occurred.
CloudTrail is useful for auditing, security investigations, and governance.
It complements CloudWatch: CloudWatch focuses on monitoring and observability, while CloudTrail provides records of supported AWS activity.
17. What Is Amazon EBS?
Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) provides block storage volumes for use with supported EC2 instances.
EBS is commonly used for operating system disks, application data, and workloads that require persistent block storage.
Important concepts include:
Volume types
Volume size and performance
Snapshots
Encryption
Availability Zone considerations
Backup and recovery planning
EBS volumes are generally associated with an Availability Zone, so designing recovery and availability requires appropriate snapshot or replication strategies.
18. What Is Amazon Route 53?
Amazon Route 53 is a scalable Domain Name System (DNS) web service.
It supports DNS record management, domain registration, and health-check and routing capabilities.
Common record types include A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, and TXT.
Route 53 can direct users toward application endpoints such as load balancers, depending on the DNS record and routing configuration.
DNS changes may take time to appear everywhere because of caching and record TTL settings.
19. What Is the Difference Between an Internet Gateway and a NAT Gateway?
An internet gateway enables communication between a VPC and the internet when routing and security settings permit it.
A NAT gateway allows resources in private subnets to initiate supported outbound connections without allowing unsolicited inbound internet connections through that NAT gateway.
For example, a private EC2 instance may need to download software updates without being directly reachable from the public internet.
A NAT gateway does not replace security groups, route tables, or application-level access controls.
20. What Is AWS CloudFormation?
AWS CloudFormation is an Infrastructure as Code service that allows teams to define and manage AWS resources using templates.
Templates describe the infrastructure to create and configure.
Infrastructure as Code can improve repeatability, version control, reviewability, and consistency across environments.
Terraform is another commonly used Infrastructure as Code tool and supports multiple providers.
21. What Is Infrastructure as Code?
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) means defining infrastructure through machine-readable configuration rather than relying entirely on manual setup.
Benefits include:
Repeatable deployments
Version-controlled changes
Easier environment recreation
Automated infrastructure provisioning
Improved review and change tracking
Tools include Terraform and AWS CloudFormation.
Infrastructure code should be reviewed, tested, and protected. Credentials and sensitive state information must not be exposed in public repositories.
22. What Is AWS Shared Responsibility?
The AWS Shared Responsibility Model divides security responsibilities between AWS and the customer.
AWS is responsible for security of the cloud, including the underlying infrastructure that supports its services.
Customers are responsible for security in the cloud, with the exact responsibilities depending on the services used.
Customer responsibilities may include identity permissions, application security, data access, and resource configuration.
For example, AWS manages the underlying physical infrastructure, but customers must configure their application permissions and data access correctly.
23. What Is the Difference Between Vertical and Horizontal Scaling?
Vertical scaling increases or decreases the capacity of an individual resource, such as moving to an EC2 instance with more CPU or memory.
Horizontal scaling increases or decreases the number of resources serving the workload.
For example, upgrading one instance to a larger size is vertical scaling. Adding more instances behind a load balancer is horizontal scaling.
Horizontal scaling often requires the application to handle multiple instances correctly, including session management, shared data, and request distribution.
24. How Can You Secure an AWS Account?
Important practices include:
Enable multifactor authentication for privileged access.
Apply least-privilege IAM policies.
Prefer temporary credentials and supported IAM roles.
Protect root-user credentials.
Enable appropriate audit logging.
Encrypt sensitive data where required.
Restrict public access to storage resources.
Monitor unusual activity and configuration changes.
Patch operating systems and application dependencies.
Review security findings and unused permissions.
Security is an ongoing process. Organizations should also establish incident response, backup, and recovery procedures.
25. How Can You Deploy a Web Application on AWS?
A deployment approach depends on the application's architecture, but a simple example could involve these steps:
Package the application and its dependencies.
Create the required network and security configuration.
Deploy the application on EC2 or another suitable compute service.
Configure an Application Load Balancer if traffic distribution is required.
Set up DNS using Route 53 if using a custom domain.
Configure HTTPS using a suitable certificate and supported integration.
Collect application logs and metrics.
Configure backups, monitoring, and alerts.
Review access permissions and security settings.
Test the deployment and document the recovery procedure.
A production deployment also needs capacity planning, secure secrets management, updates, cost monitoring, and disaster recovery appropriate to its business requirements.
Practical AWS Projects for Beginners
Interview knowledge becomes more useful when you can demonstrate it through practical work.
Project 1: Host a Static Website on S3
Create a simple static website and learn about object storage, access control, and website delivery.
For a production website, evaluate an appropriate delivery architecture, such as CloudFront with secure origin access, rather than making a storage bucket unnecessarily public.
Project 2: Deploy a Web Application on EC2
Deploy a simple web application on an EC2 instance, configure networking and security groups, and practise checking application logs.
Document the steps and remove unused resources when you finish.
Project 3: Create a VPC with Public and Private Subnets
Create a practice VPC with suitable subnets, route tables, and security controls.
Learn how traffic moves between resources and how public and private network designs differ.
Project 4: Configure CloudWatch Monitoring
Monitor a test resource, create a dashboard, and configure an alarm for a suitable metric.
Test the alarm and document what action should be taken when it triggers.
Project 5: Build a Simple Serverless Application
Use AWS Lambda with an appropriate trigger to process a small task.
Practise IAM permissions, logging, error handling, and cost awareness.
Always review current AWS pricing before creating resources. Delete unused resources and configure budgets or cost alerts where appropriate.
AWS Interview Preparation Tips
Understand the purpose of each service
Do not memorize service names alone. Be able to explain what problem a service solves and when you might use it.
Practise troubleshooting
Prepare for questions about unreachable EC2 instances, failed health checks, permission errors, DNS problems, and missing CloudWatch logs.
Learn security fundamentals
Understand IAM roles, least privilege, security groups, encryption, and the Shared Responsibility Model.
Build hands-on projects
A small working project can help you explain the relationship between networking, compute, storage, monitoring, and access controls.
Prepare for scenario-based questions
Interviewers may ask how you would design a highly available application, secure an S3 bucket, or investigate a sudden increase in cloud costs.
Explain your assumptions, possible solutions, trade-offs, and verification steps.
Find AWS and Cloud Jobs on Expectin
AWS knowledge can be useful for several career paths, including:
Cloud Engineer
AWS Cloud Support Associate
DevOps Engineer
Infrastructure Engineer
Site Reliability Engineer
Cloud Operations Engineer
Platform Engineer
Requirements vary by employer. Some entry-level positions focus on cloud fundamentals and support, while others require practical experience with automation, networking, Linux, or Infrastructure as Code.
Visit https://expectin.com to explore available vacancies and review the experience requirements, technical skills, and application instructions for each position.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is AWS suitable for freshers?
Yes. Some employers recruit freshers for cloud support, junior cloud engineering, and related entry-level positions. Build practical skills and check each role's eligibility criteria.
Which AWS services should beginners learn first?
Start with IAM, EC2, S3, VPC, CloudWatch, and basic networking. Then learn additional services according to your target role.
Do I need Linux to become an AWS Cloud Engineer?
Linux is valuable for many cloud roles because it is widely used for servers, containers, scripting, and troubleshooting. The level of knowledge required depends on the position.
Is AWS certification mandatory?
Not every employer requires certification. Certifications can demonstrate structured learning, but practical skills, projects, troubleshooting, and role-specific knowledge are also important.
How can I practise AWS without spending too much?
Check current AWS Free Tier eligibility and pricing, use small practice environments, configure budgets and cost alerts, and delete resources when they are no longer needed. Not every service or usage pattern is free.
Where can I find AWS jobs?
Visit https://expectin.com to explore current job listings and check the skills and experience required for each vacancy.
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