Microsoft Interview Experience for SDE

It was a bulk-hiring process, where they had flown in interviewers from Hyderabad. Around 40+ candidates of more than 3 years of experience had been called. Everyone was made to wait, and it was too stressful on the candidates – due to the long wait time, and the panel – due to the high number of candidates to be interviewed. I had two rounds. Each round was less than 30 minutes and very short. Not sure if it is because I gave the answer right away or because the interviewers were not interested (seemed like it).

First round:

• Tell me about yourself.
• About my current work and job.
• Then asked one coding question. That was Reversal algorithm for array rotation.
  He asked to propose any solution first and then optimize it. I said I have encountered this question and know the optimal solution with O(n) time and O(1) space. He asked to explain the solution and then code it. Once I completed, he asked to do unit test and say a few test cases, I did it, that was it.

Second round:

• Few questions about my current work and job
• One coding question. That was Clone LL with random pointer.
  I had not known this question before and I came up with hashing based implementation. The interviewer asked me to write it down, and once done he asked me for alternative implementations. I suggested two other methods all with O(n) extra space, but he wanted with O(1) extra space. I could not come up with it and be asked to leave.

Other people who interviewed with me got the following questions:

• Implement singleton design pattern.
• Clone Circular Linked List.

The overall interview experience was very bad. I had to wait for more than 7 hours just to give 30 minutes of the interview. The interviewers did not discuss or participate in problem-solving, once I solved the given problem, the interview was over. Also, they seemed very disinterested in the entire interview process. HR co-ordination was also very bad. Both interviewers did not have my resume and had someone else’s resume – so it was irritating. The major focus was on the array, Linked List and design.