I applied through college or university. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Microsoft (Austin, TX) in Mar 2016
Interview
I applied to Microsoft through a university held career fair and applying online. About a week later I heard back from Microsoft via email and was invited to a presentation the day before the interviews to ease our nerves. The presentation pretty much foreshadowed my demise for the interview.
On Microsoft's website, they advertised that the position of Program Manager does not require the applicant to be well-versed in programming. However, during the presentation we were told the exact opposite and to expect programming questions during the interview. Seeing as I was a mechanical engineer student and my weakest point is programming (data structures and such since those are not taught in my course work) this was leading to a train wreck.
On interview day, it was a pretty speedy process. The interview took a total of 30 minutes. The employees that held the presentation the day before are the ones interviewing in my case. As expected, the first question I get is a data structure question. Explained to the interviewer my position and lack of programming experience and was still dragged through those questions for an additional 10 minutes. At that point, it was clear from the interviewer's body language and facial ticks that I was no longer being considered for a follow-up. The interviewer then switched to product design since that was also expected in the position. Tried recovering the interview at this point since product design is my forte but the interviewer was very disconnected and disinterested in my responses.
Ultimately, the interview ended poorly from a surprise misinformation on their job posting. The interviewer also didn't make it any easier when I let them know my current position and their attitude through the interview. The whole experience left a bad taste for me and I probably will not apply to this company again unless approached and fully informed on their expectations in whatever job opening.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a infinite list, how can you find and then remove the second to last element in the list?
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
It was on school campus, two 45 minute consecutive interviews. They were both senior program managers and asked some behavioural and design question. There were no coding questions, but I think I just got lucky.
One interviewer was super nice and friendly, while the other one was very intimidating. I don't know if that's just their personalities, or they were just playing good cop bad cop.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Microsoft (San Francisco, CA) in Jan 2018
Interview
The recruiter reached out on LinkedIn and then conducted a 30-minute interview asking basic background related questions. He then scheduled a 45 minute conversation with hiring manager. Both recruiter and hiring manager went off the radar and didn't have the courtesy to let me know the outcome. Although the recruiter did commit to providing an update after my first email follow-up, he never got back. Very unprofessional! Complete waste of time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why this role? Why are you looking to transition? How do you keep up with product and tech trends? How do you work cross functionally? GTM experience?