Microsoft's Rigorous Interview Process
Summary
I recently went through Microsoft's rigorous interview process, which comprised an online coding assessment followed by two comprehensive technical rounds focusing on my projects, CS fundamentals, and specific data structure and algorithm problems.
Full Experience
I recently went through Microsoft's rigorous interview process. It commenced with an online test hosted on Codility, lasting 2 hours. This assessment featured two coding questions, varying in difficulty from easy-medium to medium-hard. The test cases were hidden, which demanded not only strong technical proficiency but also meticulous code review on my part.
My first technical round was quite dynamic; there wasn't a fixed pattern. We delved into discussions about my past projects, internship experiences, and foundational computer science concepts. The interviewer also took a keen interest in my GitHub profile, where I'm glad to say I had over 2000 contributions. We discussed various aspects of databases, comparing SQL and NoSQL, and I had the opportunity to talk about my favorite algorithms, initially focusing on Binary Search and then Dijkstra's algorithm. For the coding segment, I was given the problem Populating Next Right Pointers in Each Node. I had to solve it and thoroughly explain its time and space complexity. This round was approximately 40-45 minutes long.
The second technical round was also flexible, potentially involving DSA, system design, or a combination. This particular round was conducted offline, though I understand some candidates might have an online version. My interviewer was a Senior Manager with more than a decade of experience. He made an effort to put me at ease before we began discussing my resume and internship. For the coding challenge, I was tasked with implementing a queue using a single array, along with its core functions: push, pop, isEmpty, and isFull, given a specific capacity 'C'. While it shared conceptual similarities with Implement Queue using Stacks, the key constraint was using only one array. Initially, I considered a two-array approach, but I was challenged to optimize it for a single array. This led us to a detailed discussion of a circular array solution, meticulously covering how to manage empty and full queue scenarios. This round lasted about 35-40 minutes.
Interview Questions (2)
Given a perfect binary tree, connect each node to its next right node. If there is no next right node, the next pointer should be set to NULL. Initially, all next pointers are set to NULL. You may assume it is a perfect binary tree (all leaves are on the same level, and every parent has two children).
Implement a queue data structure using a single array of a predefined capacity 'C'. Your implementation should include the following functions: push (enqueue), pop (dequeue), isEmpty, and isFull. The primary challenge is to efficiently manage the queue operations within the fixed-size array, specifically by discussing and applying a circular array approach. You need to account for all edge cases related to an empty or full queue.