Microsoft Interview Experience by Rahul Garg | On Campus - Aug 2020

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Microsoft interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

SDE - Intern

Microsoft

4 rounds | 7 Coding problems

Rahul_Garg_63a7

Fresher | Aug 2020

Selected

Interview preparation journey

Journey

My journey started when I was in class 12th and my teacher guided me to take part in the coding competitions that are hosted by codechef. After that I started participating in them and developed a habit of doing coding questions.

Application story

I was very excited to hear that Microsoft is coming to our campus for hiring. I always wanted to join Microsoft so I started preparing for the interview. Then the interviews started with 3 rounds as technical and 1 HR round.

Why selected/rejected for the role?

I was selected because I was ready for all sorts of questions as I had prepared well for the interviews.

Preparation

Duration: 2-3 months

Topics: Data Structures, Algorithms, OOPS, Operating System, Database Management, C++, or Java (proficient in anyone) Computer Networks.

Tip

Tip 1 : I would suggest practicing as many questions on data structures and algorithms as you can because it is the question practice that would help you in building your concepts strong. I practiced a lot of questions on InterviewBit and completed all modules of data structures and algorithms because there you can find the recent interview questions that you should know.
Tip 2 : If you have time for your interviews, I would recommend going through Leetcode as it has a good variety of questions sorted on topic wise difficulty level where you can try to solve at least 20-30 questions for each data structure and algorithm. Moreover, you should regularly participate in the weekly contests happening there so that you could know about your weak areas to improve.
Tip 3 : Along with coding you should be clear about some basic concepts of Operating systems and Databases that would help in your interviews. One more thing is that do some good research about the company's goal and vision and be prepared to ask some company-related queries that show your interest in the company.

Application process

Where: Campus

Eligibility: Above 8 CGPA

Resume tip

Tip 1 : Your Resume should consist of mainly skills, projects, and achievements. Projects would play a crucial part in your interview and you should have at least one most relevant and good project that shows how strong your concepts are in development.
Tip 2 : The most important tip is that never lie on your resume and like If you have worked upon some technology for the project part only and don't know the proper depth you could write basics only in your resume.

Interview rounds

Round

Medium

Online Coding Test

Duration90 minutes

Interview date6 Aug 2020

Problems3

The round consists of 3 coding questions and the test was conducted on mettl platform. There was no sectional time limit for the coding questions. Every student got randomly 3 coding questions and none of the students got the same set of questions. The test was online with audio and video both on for continuous monitoring.

1. Mean median mode of unsorted array

You are given an array 'ARR' of 'N' integers and you have to calculate 3 things for the given array:-

1. Mean - function mean(): This function should calculate the mean of the array.

<...

Problem approach

The mean was easy to compute calculating the sum of the entire array, then I sorted the array for median and checked the size of the array. If the size was odd I returned the middle element else I returned the average of the two middle elements. For mode, I maintained a frequency array and returned the lowest element with maximum frequency.

Try solving now

2. Nth term of gp series

You are given the first term (A), the common ratio (R) and an integer N. Your task is to find the Nth term of the GP series.

The gener...

Problem approach

I used the setprecision() method to round off the nth gp number.

Try solving now

3. Dice throw

You are given D dice, each having F faces numbered 1 to F, both inclusive. The task is to find the possible number of ways to roll the dice together such that the sum of face-up numbe...

Problem approach

I used dp to solve this problem with the Number of dice directly used as row index and the sum is directly used as the column index. In the end, I returned the last element of dp table.

Try solving now

Round

Medium

Video Call

Duration50 minutes

Interview date10 Aug 2020

Problems2

This round was based on data structures and some discussion regarding the projects. The interviewer was very calm and listened very carefully to the solutions. There was a lot of discussion on my projects and the interviewer seems to be very interested in knowing about the workflows of my projects.

1. Identical Trees

You are given two binary trees with 'n' and 'm' nodes respectively.

You need to return true if the two trees are identical. Otherwise, return false.

...

Problem approach

I first solved the question with simple recursion by checking every node and then calling to the left and right subtree.
Then the interviewer asked me to optimize.
I explained to him then that if we have to check their identity we have to traverse both the tree fully.
He was satisfied with the explanation.

Try solving now

2. Distinct subsequences of an array

You have been given string 'S' of length 'N' that may contain duplicate alphabets. Your task is to return the count of distinct subsequences of it.

For example:

Problem approach

I solved this question using recursion and map. I made two recursion calls one for including the element and one for excluding the element and then after reaching the end of the array I push the subsequence to the resultant vector. I also checked for duplicates using the map.
The interviewer was satisfied with this approach after I explained to him the workflow and that since we want all the...

Try solving now

Round

Medium

Video Call

Duration50 minutes

Interview date10 Sep 2020

Problems1

This round was also based on data structures and the interviewer was not responding as much as in the first round so that I should think on my own that whether I am on right track or not. In this round also there was a deep discussion on one of my web development with machine learning project. So don't panic in these situations If the interviewer is not responding much because he is noting down every tiny detail of your written code.

1. Delete Kth node from end of a linked list

You have been given a singly Linked List of 'N' nodes with integer data and an integer 'K'.

Problem approach

I first founded the length of the linked list and then took the difference of length and N, which would give me the node to be deleted from the beginning. After I got the index of the node to be deleted from the front I simply traversed the list up to that node and deleted it from memory.
The interviewer asked me to optimize the solution.
So, the above solution was taking O(2n) time, I op...

Try solving now

Round

Medium

HR Round

Duration30 minutes

Interview date10 Aug 2020

Problems1

This was an HR/Coding round and was the final one. The coding question was to find the nth node from the end of the linked list which is similar to the one asked in the previous round. The interview started with 2-3 HR questions and after I answered all of them, there was a serious discussion on my projects like why did you chose this project, what are its advantages, was it able to solve the existing problem. I answered all the project related queries very calmly and he was satisfied.

1. HR/ Coding Round

Problem approach

Tip 1 : For the first question, I answered like this that I expect constant learning and growing from this internship and wanted to contribute something to improving the standards of the people in the technical world. You should always be clear towards your goal and how it would help the company and you too in growing as an engineer.
Tip 2 : For the second question, I answered this by breaki...

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