microsoft | Software Engineer | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Not specified
Difficulty: Not specified
Interview Process
I received a recruiter call in September, and after two weeks of an online assessment, I moved on to the onsite interviews with Azure’s infrastructure team.
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Round 1: The first interviewer asked me the “Number of Islands” problem. After about 20 minutes, a second interviewer entered, indicating the first had gone to the wrong room. The conversation shifted to system issues, including concurrency, and the differences between deadlocks and livelocks. I was tasked with implementing a queue from scratch. I started with an array but was unable to finish due to time constraints, so I suggested using a linked list instead.
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Round 2: Focused on behavioral questions related to teamwork. I struggled with sorting algorithms and spent a significant amount of time discussing how to use a hash table for grouping.
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Round 3: I was asked to write a small API for a Tic-Tac-Toe game to determine the winner.
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Round 4: An interviewer from the Software Development group asked me to design a car simulation system. I had experience with this from a previous job, where I needed to simulate and monitor aspects like car doors and temperature. I started with a metrics monitoring system template, but halfway through, the interviewer requested to see my progress, acknowledging that it would typically take several months to implement fully. The focus was on using virtual machines and objects to represent the car.
Technical Questions
- Number of Islands (Graph Theory)
- Tic-Tac-Toe API (Game Logic)
- Car Simulation System Design (Object-Oriented Design)
Tips & Insights
- Be prepared for casual yet technical conversations.
- Make sure to manage your time effectively during coding challenges.
- Familiarize yourself with system design concepts and be ready to discuss past experiences related to them.