I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bengaluru) in Dec 2019
Interview
I interviewed with Microsoft Azure Team - Hyderabad at Bangalore location .
Overall it was a very bad experience.
It was a bulk hiring process, where they had flown in interviewers from Hyderabad.
Around 40+ candidates of more than 3 years experience had been called.
Everyone was made to wait, and it was too stressful on the candidates - due to the longer wait time, and the panel - due to the high number of candidates to be interviewed.
I had two rounds. Each round was less than 30 minutes and very short. Not sure if it is because I gave the answer rightaway or because the interviewers were not interested (seemed like it).
First round :
1. Tell me about yourself
2. About my current work and job.
3. Then asked one coding question : Rotate array.
He asked to propose any solution first, and then optimise it. I said I have encountered this question and know the optimal solution with O(n) time and O(1) space. He asked to explain solution and then code it.
Once I completed - he asked to do unit test and say few test cases - I did it.
That was it.
Second round :
1. Few questions about my current work and job
2. One coding question : Clone LL with random pointer :
I had not known this question before and I came up with hashing based implementation . The interviewer asked me to write it down, and once done he asked me for alternative implementations.
I suggested two other methods all with O(n) extra space - but he wanted with O(1) extra space. I could not come up with it and was asked to leave.
Other people who interviewed with me got the following questions :
1. Implement singleton design pattern
2. clone circular Linked List
Overall interview experience was very bad. I had to wait for more than 7 hours just to give 30 minutes of interview.
The interviewers did not discuss or participate in problem solving - once I solved the given problem, interview was over. Also they seemed very disinterested in the entire interview process.
HR co-ordination was also very bad. Both interviewers did not have my resume and had some one else's resume - so it was irritating.
Major focus was on array, Linked List and design.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Rotate array.
He asked to propose any solution first, and then optimise it.
It started with a 90-minute online assessment, followed by a technical phone screen with one engineer. The OA covered two medium-to-hard algorithm problems. For coding practice, I mainly rely on "LeetCode" to cover different topics. For company-specific interview preparation, I use "Hack2Hire", "LeetCode Discuss", and "1Point3Acres" to find any recent original questions. All of them are helpful platforms. The phone screen included one coding problem and some discussion around edge cases and time complexity.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a list of meeting time intervals, determine if a person could attend all meetings.
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Microsoft in Dec 2024
Interview
I was invited to a technical interview with Microsoft. The interviewer started with a general question: “What happens when you type google.com into your browser?” They asked a few follow-up questions related to that.
After that, they gave me a LeetCode algorithmic question, which was at a hard level. The problem was “Integer to English Words.”
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. What happens when you type google.com into your browser?
2. “Integer to English Words” – LeetCode algorithmic question
Three tech interviews + one hiring manager VO, most of questions are medium to hard leetcode questions. Ask some questions about techniques you written on the resume. But I think they care more about the match of the research and the job.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about the recommendation System you made for the work.