Microsoft | SDE-2 | Noida | JAN 2024 [Reject]

Background

Designation: SDE-1
YOE: 1.8 YOE (FT)
College: Tier 2, In Chennai, India

Interview Process
Applied through Career portal.

• OA Round (2nd week of DEC 2023)
  • Hackerrank link was sent for OA round, it contains 2 questions, can't remember the exact question. But one was based on String and another was based on Heap. Both was leetcode medium level.
  • Able to solve the given questions in given time, with all test cases passing.

After a long wait I was called for next round interview in JAN 1st week, where (R1 & R2) happened on same day.

• R-1 (1st week of JAN 2024)

  • It was 1 hour round, where the interviewer seems so friendly and nice. We talked about each other for 15 mins, like what I'm doing and what's their team doing.

  • Then we jumped into a DSA problem, the problem was more or like https://leetcode.com/problems/remove-all-adjacent-duplicates-in-string-ii/description/, but this is with string for me they asked in array with integers.

    • I was able to solve it quickly with for..while loop, interviewer were impressed, since i came up with a solution in less than 10min and it passed all test cases too.
    • Then interviewer asks to complet this in O(n), and with some help, I was able to complete it with O(n) using stack.

  • Then he gave good feedbacks at end, I would like rate this hire.

• R-2 (Same day)

  • Initially, he started by introducing himself, then he went through my resume and asked a lot of questions from resume, it lasted for 15-20min.

  • Then we went into actual interview, I was told it will be DSA, but i was LLD.

    • He asked me to do a LLD for a site like stackoverflow with limited features, such as.

      • Topic subscription/unsubscription.
      • Ask Question/Answer.
      • Upvote Question/Answer.
      • Global Search.
      • Feed View (With Recent question and Most upvoted question options).

    • I started with defining API's, then I defined DB with all fields and he asked how will you write a efficient query for all API's.

    • He was asking how would cache inclusion will help here, so I have to add cache logic and told what data to be cached with TTL or permanent.

    • Then we talked about scale in both service and DB level.

  • Everything went well, and interviewer agreed with solution, and he gave some feedback like, you need to be more vocal, but the feedback was poitive, I would rate as lean hire.

• R-3 (2nd week of JAN 2024)

  • It was interview with a very senior manager, he has 22+ YOE, so i was bit nervous.
  • We started by introudcing ourselves, and then some behavioral questions, after we jumped into interview.
  • Actually Interviewer gave me choice, You want to go with DSA or System Design, I tought DSA might be risky since i'm not very good at DSA. So i told System Design.
  • He told to design GEN-Z Calendar, with upcoming events, movies & sports events, assume there is a public API, and fetch all data from that.
    • Initially I started with API design, DB design, Query Design and then I drew the diagram, with a scalable solution.
  • So at the hour end, I know i was nervous, i din't do well, as expected interviewer told that, you need to improve your in your system design and you missed the volume part, but he told that It's nice a less than 2YOE was able to solve a system design problem, but it was not upto the par, so he told to read lot of blog post and watch videos. At this point I knew, I messed up, and he told, it's not in my hand let's see. Based on some hints at feedback, I would rate as No hire.

It's been more than a week, since i had my R-3, no updates, I even contacted HR, no response. So, I'll consider it as Reject (because it was no hire from very senior manager) and will move on. Upvote if this helps you.