Hi All, I wanted to share my experience from a recent interview I had with Microsoft for the SSE role. Unfortunately, it was not what I had hoped for.

The interview ( An Asian Guy) started with a discussion about my work experience at Google, which went smoothly. However, things took a turn during the coding challenge portion. I was tasked with implementing a topological sort ( to be in short ) for a graph—a problem I’m familiar with and confident in solving.

Here’s what happened:

I explained my approach, and the interviewer agreed that it was correct.
As I moved on to implement the solution, the interviewer seemed to struggle with understanding my code despite my efforts to clarify it step by step.
This led to a frustrating back-and-forth where the interviewer disagreed with my solution without providing clear reasoning. I attempted to explain my logic patiently, but the discussion felt more argumentative than constructive.
What was most disappointing was the way the interview concluded. After the session, the interviewer’s demeanor was unprofessional and dismissive, leaving me with a negative impression of the process.

I’ve reached out to the company, requesting a review of my performance by another panel or the opportunity for an additional round of interviews, as I feel this experience may have unfairly impacted my candidacy.

For anyone preparing for interviews, I’d advise staying calm and advocating for yourself if you face similar challenges. While candidates work hard to prepare, it’s equally important for interviewers to maintain professionalism and foster a respectful environment.

I hope Microsoft considers the importance of interviewer conduct in ensuring a positive candidate experience.

Thanks for Reading!

Edit1 : You may wonder interviewer asks the same question repeatedly throughout countless interviews. How is it possible that he couldn’t understand my code? This wasn’t just about solving a random problem—it was actually about addressing a real issue they were facing in their work. The problem involved connecting nodes that were dependent on each other. Eventually, we concluded that we needed to use topological sorting. Once we identified this, the problem statement was completely reduced to finding a topological sort.

That’s it—that was the question. I’ve taught this question to many of my students and mentees, and I’ve even created a video on it for youtube community as well.