Microsoft Interview Experience – SDE II L61 (Selected)
Summary
I recently navigated the Microsoft SDE II L61 interview process in India and am pleased to report that I received an offer. The experience included an online assessment and four intensive rounds covering Data Structures, Algorithms, CS Fundamentals, Low-Level Design, System Design, and behavioral aspects.
Full Experience
I'm excited to share my recent interview experience with Microsoft for an SDE II L61 role in India, for which I was ultimately selected. The journey began when a recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn, kicking off a comprehensive process.
First up was the Online Assessment (OA), which took place on Hackerrank. This involved solving two Data Structures and Algorithms questions.
The core of the process was the Interview Day, where I faced four back-to-back rounds.
Round 1: DSA + CS Fundamentals
This round featured a Binary Search problem that bore a strong resemblance to the LeetCode problem "Minimize Max Distance to Gas Station." Beyond the coding, we delved into various Computer Science fundamentals. Topics covered included the basics of multithreading, a discussion on the distinctions between replica, snapshot, and checkpoint in DBMS, and an exploration of deadlock detection and prevention mechanisms.
Round 2: DSA + CS Fundamentals
This round started with a detailed discussion about my past projects. For the DSA part, I was asked to "Print all subsequences of a string." I had to clearly explain my approach by walking through the recursion tree and perform a thorough time complexity analysis. The interviewer specifically focused on my understanding of recursion depth, handling edge cases, and my intuition regarding complexity.
Round 3: Low-Level Design (LLD)
This was a challenging LLD round where I was tasked with designing an Elevator System. My responsibilities included drawing a UML diagram, writing functional code for the elevator assignment logic, outlining a scheduling strategy, considering how to handle multiple requests, and demonstrating a clean Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) design throughout my solution.
Round 4: Behavioral / System Design (AA)
The final round was a mix of a deep dive into one of my past projects and a High-Level Design (HLD) challenge for a Key-Value (KV) store. We also covered general leadership and behavioral questions, focusing on my experiences and problem-solving approaches in various professional scenarios.
Interview Questions (8)
Discussion on core concepts and principles of multithreading.
Explaining the differences and use cases of replica, snapshot, and checkpoint in Database Management Systems (DBMS).
Concepts and mechanisms for detecting and preventing deadlocks in operating systems or concurrent programming.
Given a string, print all its possible subsequences. This involved a recursion tree walkthrough and a detailed time complexity analysis, with a focus on recursion depth, edge cases, and complexity intuition.
Design an object-oriented elevator system. This included creating a UML diagram, writing working code for the elevator assignment logic, proposing a scheduling strategy, considering how to handle multiple requests, and ensuring a clean Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) design.
Provide a high-level design (HLD) for a distributed Key-Value (KV) store.
General questions focusing on leadership principles, past project experiences, and problem-solving approaches in various professional scenarios.