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Microsoft Software Design Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
Getting the Interview 5 Interviews
Interview Experience 5 Ratings
Software Design Engineer at Microsoft
Accepted Offer – Interviewed in Redmond, WA – Reviewed Dec 14, 2012
Interview Details – was tagged by recruiting at a school career day expo (though I wasn't a student at the time, just attending), was called about 2 weeks later and since local, brought in for an all day interview that started late morning, visited each office and was asked to white board technical questions explaining my thought processes as I did it, then was also asked about my shipping products experience or other theoretical 'what would you do in such a situation' project management like situations
Interview Question – asked to create a particular algorithm for a hash table scenario. the scenario was confusing and I didn't know how to even start. was not given any clarification when asked, just told to do it. I did a regular hash table and could tell that wasn't what he wanted but he just huffed and said we were done, and went to fetch the next interviewer. Answer Question
Negotiation Details – The HR person gave me a long sob story about how they couldn't meet my requirements but this was such a great opportunity I should feel grateful and just take what I was given. As I'd already messed up and told them I currently was without job, having just moved states, they hinted that this might be my only chance. like an idiot, I believed the whole thing and didn't negotiate. but I had a great manager that first year who saw what I was paid versus what I was doing and got me a large bump and stock options for fear of losing me once I figured out that I'd been conned.
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Software Design Engineer In Test (Contract) at Microsoft
Accepted Offer – Interviewed in Redmond, WA Sep 2011 – Reviewed Jan 26, 2012
Interview Details – 1/2 hour with one interviewer and 1/2 hour with the other which turned into 1 hour. Hiring manager was out of town so didn't get to interview with her.
Interview Question –
1) How do you test a paper cup? Then I was presented with a networked client software with an error dialog with user logged in as a standard users without administrator privileges and I was asked it was a bug.
2) How do you test a parking meter? Then I was asked a coding question on how to write a nested loop function to manipulate two arrays set of numbers
Answer Question
Negotiation Details – Very little or no negotiation with Vendor Agency since this was a contract position. I was offerred W2 hourly rate with $1 difference with holiday pay only and no other benefits; and another $1 difference with vacation+medical+401K, or 1099 which is almost 20% higher than W2 rate.
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Software Design Engineer II at Microsoft
Accepted Offer – Interviewed in Redmond, WA May 2010 – Reviewed May 20, 2010
Interview Details –
My first Informational round was with the General Manager for a Lead Position in which he asked questions around my profile in lead roles. I had second informatiendoronal round with the Development Lead for Technical screening before they put me into formal interview loop. I was refered for SDE 2 position for which i interviewed and accepted offer
I had to go through 5 rounds in formal interview process. The interview included questions on;
1) Architecture Design
Specific to your Skill & Role you are going for.
2) IQ
Questions on Probability
Scenario Questions
3) C# Code Writing
Write Code by hand again and again
4) Problem Solving
Use Whiteboard to your advantage
Validate the problem the your are required to solve.
Find the information and write your assumptions
Write Sample data on the white board. Once you look at the numbers you will get more ideas.
5) Thought Process evaluation
Break down the problem into parts and provide as detailed answer you can.
Use the SDLC (A, D, B, T, D)
6) Personality Questions
Tell Your Weakness,
How would your colleagues describes you,
Why do you think you will be good fit for the role
7) Communication skills
Effectively Communicate
Eye Contact is must
Present your self confident and dress up nicely
I would suggest to look at the Job description very carefully and make sure you cover each and every aspect of the role. Have one of your buddy to take your interview 2-3 times, this will help you evaluate whether you really remeber things or go blank when you have demonstrate to somebody.
There were 2 more internal candidates came for the interview before the team made me the offer. If you don;t make through they will tell you in 1 - 2 days. If there are more candiates in loop they will keep you informed.
Overall Technical Recruiter was of great help with scheduling, negotiation and any other information you needed.
Good Luck to everyone who is planning for MS Interviews
Interview Question – General Conditional Probability Questions, String Manipulation Questions Answer Question
Negotiation Details – You Can Negotiate Salary, Signing Bonus
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Software Design Engineer Intern at Microsoft
Accepted Offer – Interviewed in Redmond, WA Mar 2010 – Reviewed Mar 10, 2010
Interview Details –
I had applied online and they emailed me back saying that I will have the first interview "on campus".
1) 1 interview in the university (mostly behavioral, less technical) - 30 minutes
After about 3 weeks I was informed that I would be called to be interviewed in Redmond.
Interview in Redmond:
2) 3 *1 hr interviews and 1*90 minutes long lunch interview in Redmond.
The product for which I was selected to interview, didn't impress me much initially. However people were good.
i) Interviewer 1 - He asked me a lot of questions based on my resume and my experience. He asked me 1 design question
ii) Interviewer 2 - This was a lunch interview. He asked me to solve a problem on board first. Then we went for lunch where he asked me questions related to my resume and other general questions
iii) Interviewer 3 - 1 question and general questions
iv) Interviewer 4 - he was the seniormost guy. Asked me to code two problems and asked general questions.
Interview Questions
- Think of any product. Design it. Define data structures for it and write algorithms for the methods used. Answer Question
- How would you search m strings in a given text in an efficient manner? Answer Question
- A set of line segments represent a geographical region (enclosing line segments). you have a couple of such sets. All together, the regions form a complete closed Big region. Find the bounding line segments for the total Big region. Answer Question
- Write code to remove redundant spaces from a string in C Answer Question
- Write code in C to replace a particular character in a string with k other characters. Answer Question
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Senior Software Design Engineer at Microsoft
Accepted Offer – Interviewed in Bangalore (India) – Reviewed Sep 18, 2012
Interview Details –
There is an initial telephonic round, which is technical. You should be prepared to write C code for basic coding problems such reversing a linked list or deleting every n-th node in a linked list.
After you get past the telephonic round, there will be in person face to face interview rounds. There can be minimum 3 to maximum 5 or 6 rounds.
You will be tested on coding, problems solving, computer science fundamentals, design etc.
Each interviewer may focus on one of the above areas. Most of the time, you will be asked to write code. The code is expected to be tight, handle all boundary conditions, efficient in terms of time and space complexity.
Interview Question – you have an array of size N whose contents are either 0, 1 or 2 (repeated, of course). Sort the array in a single pass. Answer Question
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