I applied online. The process took 7 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Oct 2022
Interview
Phone screening with a recruiter. It was not really technical. More details below. Then technical interview with two different engineers each 45mins. The hardest part was to get my resume picked up for interview. I had to take TA gigs and contribute to research in any way. Prior internship at a bank as an IT summer analyst also helped along with some diversity events with few banks and competitors. Got referred for PM internship but got eventually interviewed for SWE. So I don’t think it really matters what position you got referred for as long as you’re in their system.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
In fall 2022, phone screening asked for “Tell me about a time you had a disagreement in a group work and how did you handle it” and “Explain recursion to me like you would explain it to your grandmother” Then in the technical interview, two questions, 45 mins each. First was easy Leetcode Linked List question. I couldn’t finish it in time but I was able to walk through what was missing to solve it. second one was easy Leetcode strings question. Finished it 10 mins early and was able to test it. Then talk to my interviewer about myself and why Microsoft. Got accepted few days afterwards. Bottom line is: it’s not as important to know the answer as much as to be able to explain it and communicate your thought process. Again, this was in 2022, before the layoffs and cut on recruiting. Best of luck.
I applied through their website with a referral, after a month or so they sent me a home exam, I think about a month after that i had 3 interviews in the same day, each one around 1:15 hours.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
implement a dictionary where you have set,get and setAll, all in O(1)
The hiring process consists of a HackerRank home exam, followed by three technical interviews covering LeetCode-style problems and system architecture. Once this is done, you will have a final HR interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I had a technical interview where I was asked to solve the classic 'Climbing Stairs' problem (LeetCode #70), which is a dynamic programming question based on the Fibonacci sequence.
One HR interview, then two problem-solving interviews (beginer level) on HackerRank. You can choose the best programming language for you to use in solving problems. You should think out loud to enable your interviewer to understand how you would think to solve the problem.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Find the lowest difference between two numbers in a list
