Date of Interview : Jan 2026
YOE : 4 years

I had recently appeared for Microsoft Interviews and felt like sharing my interview experience.

Round 1 : DSA

There is a planet where there are 2 species. An Artist and an Enthusiast. The Artist creates a painting for his survival (which is in the form of integers) and the Enthusiast will consume the oldest unique painting that exists. So, using appropriate data structure implement these 2 functions.

For example,
The painters have painted the below paintings.

Paintings : [4,2,5,1,2]

So, for the enthusiast, we need to output the oldest unique painting

Enthusiast : 4

Now if a painter submits another painting

Paintings : [4,2,5,1,2,4]

The enthusiast will have to consume the painting 5, because that is the oldest and unique painting.

Enthusiast : 5

Follow ups:

1. Since the planet consists of millions of species, the functions can be called simultaneously, so how will you address that?
   I answered using synchronisation
2. But using synchronisation, only one enthusiast will be given the painting at one time, and, there are millions of species, how will you make this faster?

Round 2 : LLD

Design a 2 dimensional graph data structure to achieve the below:

1. The user should be able to get the shortest distance b/w point A and point B
2. The user must be able to see the nearest landmarks like schools, hospitals, etc.

Round 3 : HLD

Metrics aggregator, monitoring system

Verdict : Rejected