Microsoft SDE2 interview experience Hyderabad
Summary
I interviewed for an SDE2 role at Microsoft's MS 365 security team in Hyderabad, experiencing rounds focused on system design, DSA, and behavioral aspects, ultimately resulting in a rejection.
Full Experience
I interviewed for the SDE2 position with Microsoft's MS 365 security team in Hyderabad. The interview process consisted of three rounds.
Round 1
This round focused heavily on system design and architectural principles. We discussed Microservices Patterns, the Low-Level Design (LLD) of a Rule Engine, and I had to explain the architecture diagram of my current project. Questions were also asked about Dependency Injection and any abstractions or reusable modules I had implemented in my work. For the Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA) part, I was given the 'Word Break' problem, which required a Dynamic Programming approach.
Round 2
This round continued with DSA challenges. I encountered a problem involving the Sliding Window technique (though a specific problem was not detailed). Additionally, I was presented with LeetCode problem 2008, 'Maximum Earnings From Taxi', which combined Dynamic Programming with Binary Search. Both DSA rounds required me to solve the problems on HackerRank.
Round 3 - Hiring Manager
This round was with the Hiring Manager and lasted about 30 minutes, focusing primarily on behavioral questions. I was asked about how I would pitch for investment on a project to senior leadership, how I would resolve a conflict with a colleague who had a better design after a heated argument, and how I would communicate in a meeting if a project deadline absolutely could not be met.
Finally, there was an open-ended system design question involving two automation tasks: first, removing a policy inserted by a hacker, and second, resetting the system to its default policy every day. This round required me to clarify functional requirements by asking relevant questions and explore various design directions. The expectation was to come up with APIs, flows, database schemas, policy pointers, and consider multi-datacenter issues, particularly with master-slave configurations when a corrupted policy is pushed. I needed to ask questions to clarify all these aspects.
The final verdict was a rejection.
Interview Questions (11)
Discussion around Microservices architectural patterns, including their advantages, disadvantages, and real-world applications.
Design a Rule Engine at a low level, detailing its components such as rule definition, rule storage, rule evaluation, and integration points.
Discuss and present the architecture diagram of a current or recent project, explaining design choices, scalability, reliability, and challenges faced.
Discussion around Dependency Injection principles (e.g., Inversion of Control), its benefits, and how it's applied in software development.
Discuss any significant abstractions or reusable modules implemented in personal projects, detailing their purpose, design, and impact on maintainability or extensibility.
A Data Structures & Algorithms question, specifically the 'Word Break' problem. Given a string s and a dictionary of strings wordDict, return true if s can be segmented into a space-separated sequence of one or more dictionary words. Note that the same word in the dictionary may be reused multiple times in the segmentation. You may assume the dictionary does not contain duplicate words. This problem is typically solved using Dynamic Programming.
A Data Structures & Algorithms problem, LeetCode 2008, 'Maximum Earnings From Taxi'. You are driving a taxi and want to maximize your earnings. You are given a number n (the number of available points) and a 2D integer array rides, where rides[i] = [start_i, end_i, tip_i] denotes the ith ride starting at start_i, ending at end_i, and yielding a tip of tip_i. You can only pick up one ride at a time. This problem requires a combination of Dynamic Programming and Binary Search for an efficient solution.
How would you approach pitching for some investment required in a project to senior leadership, outlining your strategy and key arguments?
Describe a situation where you had a conflict with a colleague, especially when they presented a design better than yours. How would you talk to them after a heated argument and rebuild the professional relationship?
If a project deadline absolutely cannot be met, what steps would you take to communicate this effectively in a meeting, and how would you manage expectations?
Design an open-ended system for two automation tasks:
- Remove a policy inserted by a hacker from the system.
- Ensure the system automatically resets to a default policy every day.
This problem required clarifying functional requirements, considering aspects like APIs, data flows, database design, policy pointers, and handling multi-datacenter issues, particularly with master-slave configurations when a corrupted policy is pushed. The expectation was to ask clarifying questions to cover all these aspects.