Microsoft Interview Experience || SDE 1 (L60) Noida

My interview journey with Microsoft for the SDE 1 position in Noida began after applying directly on their portal, which led to a recruiter reaching out for an Online Assessment.

Online Assessment (OA)

The OA consisted of two questions, one involving difference arrays and another hard problem on heaps. While I don't recall the exact problem statements, I successfully solved both, which secured me an interview invite.

Round 1: Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA)

This round featured three DSA questions. The first was a challenging problem involving finding the longest safest path in a string containing lowercase letters and hashes (blockers), with a follow-up allowing one hash to be considered safe. The second question, which I can't precisely recall, was based on string matching and two pointers. I managed to solve all three questions in this round.

Round 2: Low-Level Design (LLD)

For the LLD round, I was tasked with designing a cache. I approached this using Object-Oriented Design principles, emphasizing SOLID principles, and implemented a strategy pattern for the eviction policy. I specifically coded for the LRU (Least Recently Used) eviction policy and ran the complete code, which seemed to impress the interviewer with its quality.

Round 3: Asked Anything (AA) / Behavioral

This round was conducted by a very senior engineering manager. I had anticipated a mix of technical and behavioral questions, but it turned out to be entirely behavioral. The discussion revolved around my past projects, hackathon experiences, and standard behavioral questions which I addressed using the STAR technique.

On the very same day, I received a call from the recruiter confirming my selection and extending an offer. It was a great outcome!