Sharing my failure at Microsoft Hiring Event [BQ + Coding + Design]
Summary
I recently had a Microsoft hiring event where I felt underprepared, particularly in coding. The questions were not standard LeetCode problems, and I believe I was screened out after the coding rounds. I am sharing my experience to help others prepare.
Full Experience
Just had my Microsoft hiring event recently. I went in a bit underprepared and probably got screened out on coding. One thing that surprised me: none of the questions were the usual tagged LeetCode ones, so it was a pretty rough experience for me.
Sharing a quick summary for anyone preparing for Microsoft.
Round 1 — BQ + Coding
BQ: Team size, how work is split, ownership, and collaboration style.
Coding — The rate limiter question The only problem on leetcode that's related to rate limitor is this one: https://leetcode.com/problems/logger-rate-limiter/description/, but the one I got asked is really different.
And the follow-up is what if you have 100 kps
Round 2 — System Design + Coding
System Design — Ticket Booking System
They really pushed on how to handle failures, for example, how to handle requests being dropped. This system design question was included in this list I saw earlier. I thought I prepared for it pretty well, but the question the interview focused on was very different. Other than the request drop, they really stress race conditions for ticket booking and how to handle them.
Round 3 — BQ + Coding
BQ: Example of delivering with little guidance. Lots of deep follow-ups (prioritization, rollout, A/B, etc.).
Coding — LC 939 Maximum Area Rectangle Start brute force, then optimize with hash set to reduce complexity. Mostly testing optimization thinking.
There’s another round of coding, but I didn’t take notes on the details for that round.
If I get another chance to do it again, I’d practice more string parsing and how to handle failure cases for different system design questions.
Interview Questions (5)
Behavioral: Team Dynamics
Discussed team size, how work is split, ownership, and collaboration style during the behavioral interview.
Rate Limiter Design
Design a rate limiter system. The interviewer mentioned it was different from the standard LeetCode Logger Rate Limiter. A follow-up question was how to handle 100 kps.
System Design: Ticket Booking System
Design a Ticket Booking System. The focus was heavily on handling failures (e.g., dropped requests) and race conditions during ticket booking.
Behavioral: Delivering with Ambiguity
Provide an example of delivering a project or task with little guidance. There were many deep follow-up questions regarding prioritization, rollout strategies, and A/B testing.
Minimum Area Rectangle
The problem was LeetCode 939: Minimum Area Rectangle. The interviewer expected me to start with a brute force approach and then optimize it using a hash set to reduce complexity, primarily testing optimization thinking.
Preparation Tips
If I get another chance to do it again, I’d practice more string parsing and how to handle failure cases for different system design questions.