Microsoft | L62 | Hyderabad | January 2025 [Reject]

I currently work as an SDE-2 at Amazon and had the opportunity to interview with Microsoft for an SDE-2 backend role (L62) in January 2025, facilitated by a friend's referral.

Round 1 (DSA)

This round involved an in-depth discussion about my projects. Following that, I was given two data structures and algorithms problems.

1. The first problem asked me to rearrange a linked list from {L1, L2,... R1, R2,...} to {L1, R1, L2, R2,...}. A brute force O(n*n) solution was considered acceptable.
2. The second problem involved a linked list of even size, where the task was to find the maximum sum of twins, defined as list(i) + list(n-1-i). Initially, I proposed reversing the second half, but list modifications were disallowed. With a hint to use extra space, I suggested an approach using two pointers and an array of size n/2. I would use the two pointers to reach the middle of the list, storing elements in the array. Then, I would move the slow pointer towards the end, adding values from the array to calculate the twin sums. The verdict for this round was 'Hire'.

Round 2 (LLD)

This round focused on designing an image-serving library to be integrated into various Microsoft products. The library needed to accept an HTTP URL for an image and manage its downloading. What initially seemed vague became a deep dive into several critical aspects, including resiliency (retries, different retry strategies), optimizations (caching strategies, various cache eviction policies, where I proposed a custom one), input-output modeling, design patterns, and naming conventions. The interviewer was very supportive throughout the discussion. The verdict for this round was 'Hire'.

Round 3 (HLD + Manager)

This round was conducted by a Principal Manager.

1. We started with an in-depth discussion about my current roles, responsibilities, and ongoing projects. I felt the manager wasn't entirely convinced by my projects, though I'm still unsure why.
2. Next, I was asked to design a notification system, with a specific requirement to separate critical and non-critical notifications.
3. During the High-Level Design discussion, the manager inquired about rate-limiting algorithms. I could only recall the Token Bucket algorithm at that moment.

Overall, I thought the HLD discussion went well, but I suspect the project discussion might have been the reason for not moving forward. The verdict for this round was 'No Hire'.

My overall verdict for the interview process was 'No Hire'.