Microsoft Interview Experience

Role - Software Engineer 2

Rounds -

Round 1 - Data Structures and Algorithm round. It was an array based question which required the knowledge of permutations and combinations. Could only do 1 question as a lot of time went on discussion on how can we optimize the combination calculation, so that the range do not exceed.

Round 2 -

Interview started with a dicussion on the high level architecture of the current project I am working on, in my current company.

Then the interview asked a system design question of an Elevator system. Asked to give HLD of the components, and how different systems will interact, along with some LLD.

Round 3 -

Was asked to design a Request counter on how to get the number of requests made in last x minutes. The interviewer did not made it clear if it was LLD or coding round. I gave 2 approaches, approach 1, where we use sliding window log type of logic by keeping all the timestamps. approach 2, since there could be multiple requests at a single timestamp, we can keep count at each timestamp, reducing the size of data stored.

I made class design with a modular structure, storing TimeUnit etc.

Interviewer did not make it clear that I need to give a quick running code implementation as well. On asking if I need to code, interviewer mentioned yes.

I tried to code considering best class design with approach 2, but did some mistakes (wrong use of data structures, switching language for Java to cpp etc) leading to not getting correct running code.

Interviewer was not at all interactive which confused me around the expectations of the round

Verdict - Rejected. Personal Feedback - Round 3 was easy, but I made mistakes which implementing leading to rejection.