I applied through college or university. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
I communicated via email with an interview scheduler to fly out to Redmond. I had already passed the first round at an on-campus interview, so the on-site interview was scheduled within a couple of weeks.
For the actual interview day, it started with the HR rep asking basic questions to make sure you fit the position at all, and then she directed me to my first interviewer. The interviewers would then take you to the next one in your schedule, and they would talk about you to each other in between. FYI, if you're honest to your HR rep about any concerns you might have about the position, the other interviewers will see them and do their best to persuade you otherwise.
The interview questions were not as bad as I worried - the questions were very reasonable and could definitely be done in the interview time. There were some things that they asked me about that I freely admitted to not knowing, and then they'd give me a question about it and see if I could figure things out without the prior knowledge. I definitely got the impression that for fresh out of college hires, they don't expect comprehensive knowledge of anything, just raw talent and an ability to think through things. Just be relaxed and enthusiastic and connect to the interviewers.
The interviewers were all very friendly and genuinely enthusiastic about their work, and by the last interview they were very clear that they liked me. I received the offer the next day.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I don't want to list the specific questions, but I thought all the questions were very fair - some design problems, some algorithms, some data structures, pointers.
It started with a 90-minute online assessment, followed by a technical phone screen with one engineer. The OA covered two medium-to-hard algorithm problems. For coding practice, I mainly rely on "LeetCode" to cover different topics. For company-specific interview preparation, I use "Hack2Hire", "LeetCode Discuss", and "1Point3Acres" to find any recent original questions. All of them are helpful platforms. The phone screen included one coding problem and some discussion around edge cases and time complexity.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a list of meeting time intervals, determine if a person could attend all meetings.
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Microsoft in Dec 2024
Interview
I was invited to a technical interview with Microsoft. The interviewer started with a general question: “What happens when you type google.com into your browser?” They asked a few follow-up questions related to that.
After that, they gave me a LeetCode algorithmic question, which was at a hard level. The problem was “Integer to English Words.”
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. What happens when you type google.com into your browser?
2. “Integer to English Words” – LeetCode algorithmic question
Three tech interviews + one hiring manager VO, most of questions are medium to hard leetcode questions. Ask some questions about techniques you written on the resume. But I think they care more about the match of the research and the job.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about the recommendation System you made for the work.
