Microsoft Interview Experience by | Software Engineer Jul 2019 (Exp. 0-2 Years)

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Software Engineer

Microsoft

5 rounds | 5 Coding problems

Ashutosh

Experienced | Jul 2019

Selected

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29 upvotes

Interview preparation journey

Journey

In the lockdown period, I started my journey to where I am today. When the first lockdown prevailed I started to learn DSA, and I think that was the best time to learn DSA because no pressure from college was there for its useless assignments and all. In the lockdown of around 6 months, I learnt the basic algorithms and at the end I started practising on leetcode and codechef like platforms, they helped me a lot during my journey.

Application story

At the start of my fourth year of graduation, some of my friends were already placed in various companies. It started to worry me that I was the one who had not even tried for an interview till then. Then, One day I saw an opening in the Microsoft. So, I applied for it. After that, the selection processes were scheduled.

Why selected/rejected for the role?

I think I had the appropriate skills and a good amount of knowledge to prove that I was the right man for the post. I also solved coding questions in the optimal manner

Preparation

Duration: 1 month

Topics: Graphs, Dynamic Programming, Arrays, LinkedList, strings

Tip

Tip 1 : Practice as much as you can.
Tip 2 : Prepare for company, not in general.
Tip 3 : Your past work should be objective and your contribution should be very clear

Application process

Where: Other

Eligibility:

Resume tip

Tip 1 : Keep only relevant things for the job you are applying.
Tip 2 : Minimal data with measurable contribution and effect.

Interview rounds

Round

Easy

Face to Face

Duration50 minutes

Interview date1 Jul 2019

Problems1

Distinct Islands

You are given a two-dimensional array/list of integers consisting of 0s and 1s. In the list, 1 represents land and 0 represents water.

Problem approach

I used Depth-first search to determine connected components.

Try solving now

Round

Easy

Face to Face

Duration50 minutes

Interview date1 Jul 2019

Problems1

Word Wrap

You are given ‘N’ words of ...

Problem approach

I first used recursion and then converted it to a dynamic programming based solution.

Try solving now

Round

Easy

Face to Face

Duration60 minutes

Interview date1 Jul 2019

Problems1

System Design

Design something similar to red bus which can handle bookings and can onboard vendors and customers to their platform

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Clear out the requirements first.
Tip 2 : Convey your thoughts regularly and don't overthink the problem.
Tip 3 : Design small and then expand.

Round

Easy

Face to Face

Duration50 minutes

Interview date1 Jul 2019

Problems1

System Design

Design synchronous system which can handle producers and consumers. Pretty much the same as a producer-consumer problem. However, the discussion went deep into implementation and the pros and cons.

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Have your basics cleared out.
Tip 2 : Be well versed in multi-threading

Round

Easy

Face to Face

Duration50 minutes

Interview date1 Sep 2019

Problems1

HR Questions

It was more or less focused on the previous experience. Idea was to check the fitment for the team and Microsoft culture.

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Be open and honest about your work.
Tip 2 : Try to answer questions objectively where they can measure your impact and the value your brought to the company.