MS IDC posted Off campus SDE intern in Mid-September and I got the referral from one of my college seniors.
There was online coding test and a virtual interview and two rounds of onsite interview at Microsoft Bangalore Office.
Online Coding Test:
The test was on 29th Sept'19.
There were 3 simple questions:-
1.https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/find-kth-character-of-decrypted-string/
2.Number of buses originating from a bus-stop.
3.Basic sorting.
I was able to solve all of them in 20-25 mins.
After 10-12 days I got the mail that I have been selected and have next Virtual Interview on Microsoft Teams on 18th Oct'19.
1st Round(Virtual Interview)
He started with a quick introduction and asked about 5-6 questions , this round lasted for 1:20 hour.
- How to check a number is power of 2 or not.
- DP question in which you have to return minimum numbers of perfect squares so that their sum is equal to the input number.
- Intersection of Linked List.
I was able to solve all of them but got slightly stucked on the DP question and took a little bit of time .
He then asked how Google suggest related searches or recommend. I wasn't confident about this, so I told him that I don't know about this but tried to give a brief overview and then he started going deep in the same topic to which I have to stop him saying that i don't know about this at all. He said no issue..he then jumped to the last question : How does garbage collector work ? Till now I had become too nervous i couldn't answer it in one shot,but was able to answer it correctly in second chance.
And the interview was over. I was so disappointed that the interview didn't went good enough (Due to that DP one and Related Searches).
and thought that I'll get rejected in the first round itself.
They released the results after a month declaring that I have made it to the onsite rounds on 16th November'19 at MS Office Bangalore.
1st Onsite Round
The interview started with a brief introduction.
He then asked me a linked list question on cloning the linked list with next and random pointers. I had skipped this question everytime i saw this..and it finally came to me at this point.
I took some time and gave him the solution he was satisfied and then changed the question and this was the tricky part . I got stuck in it for 5-10 mins..but the interviewer was helpful and he gave me a hint and it worked.
I gave him the solution and then he asked me to write the code, and he was satisfied with it.
He then asked me about Deadlocks in OS and few questions on project and I was able to answer all of them.
The round went pretty good , but there was just one thing going on whether the time i took on coding question might be the reason he will reject.But the results came after 30 mins and i made it to the final round.
2nd Onsite Round
The interviewer was very freindly he started by discussion on some of the Co-curricular achievements i have written on my CV.
He then asked what i love in computer science and why. I told him that i love the problem solving part and coding part .
He then asked me solve the grid puzzle on the board. I was able to explain it to him properly and code it well although there was a little mistake which he pointed out and told that no problem we can ignore that and asked me sit down.
He then asked what I like about Microsoft and any questions for him.
After answering these , when I came out it felt this was the best round of all three. The HR told that the results will be declared in a week or two.
The mail came and I was rejected.I wasn't able to figure it out like where did i lose it and because the things happened quite nicely but maybe they consider the reviews from all the past rounds so maybe the first round mistakes costed me rejection or something ,but it was really a tough rejection to accept. But got to know from the candidates who made it and who got rejected and the ultimate thing which came out is..the last round went perfect for all of us..but only those candidates made it who had cgpa above 9.0 and then it became all clear.(Mine was below 8.5)
I was a nice experience and learned alot of things from it. It was my first interview and it ended on such close note.
Maybe my experience could help someone and someone from 1st or 2nd year reading this a little suggestion for you guys(Work for good pointers they do have some advantage).