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Morgan Stanley Software Developer Interview Questions & Reviews

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Web: www.morganstanley.com | HQ: New York, NY

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Updated Sep 20, 2011 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.

Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 5 ratings

3.4

“Difficult” Interview

Interview Experience [?] Based on 5 ratings

Positive	40%
Neutral	40%
Negative	20%

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1–5 of 5 Morgan Stanley Interviews

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4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

Interviewed Jul 2009 in New York, NY (took 2 days)

They have a rigorous interview process. After a 45minute long IQ test with a manager. I got on a phone conference with about 3 PMs in the UK where they asked me technical questions about my skills. The initial phone interview was very technical as well.

Interview Questions

An IQ test to calculate distance and time.

View Answers (1)

Negotiation Details

There was no solid negotiation. They knew how much they wanted to pay and they weren't willing to negotiate. They had an either take it or leave it attitude.

Other Details

I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and an IQ/Intelligence Test.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

Interviewed Feb 2011 in New York, NY (took a day)

First they came to my school (Columbia uni) to conduct 1 on 1 interviews for the selected students. It was a 30 minutes interview. He started by asking the usual behavioral questions and tried to know my specific programming background. Then went down to the specifics by asking some tech questions. after that was the on-site interview which was much more tech. Amongst the problems I solved was:

He asked me to implement a function that checked if a number equals its reverse (eg 253 != 352). If it isn't, my function adds the number to itself and checks again. And then he asked me to read a file that has ice-cream flavors on each line, and then return the top 10 appearing flavors

Interview Questions

How would you write an algorithm to find the solution to a maze

View Answers (1)

Implement a dictionary that returned a word search in O(1) time

View Answers (1)

Other Details

I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

View Comments (1)

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Mar 2010 (took 1 week)

First interview was a general chat about MS and the role on offer and my experiences at previous employers and business knowledge. Second interview was similar with a more junior member of the team, but was slightly more competency based. Final interview was a technical interview with another member of the team. Specific questions and some code to review.

Interview Questions

Tell me about a time you were under pressure.

Answer Question

Other Details

I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Nov 2009 (took a day)

The phone interview was focus on C++. The interviewer was expecting you know every details about the way how compiler handles C++ concepts. For example, he's not going to be satisfied if you only know how to use virtual function, rather you should also be able to tell where is the vtable located.

Although I wasn't doing very good but my experience was positive. It gave me some clues about how to prepare for the next interview.

Interview Questions

Can you use template and virtual function in the same class?

View Answers (2)

Other Details

I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Skills Test.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Negative Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Aug 2009 (took 3 months)

It started off with phone interviews with mostly individuals from London, even though the role was in Montreal. Each interview was about 45 min but they were setup 1-2 weeks between one another. Almost all the interviews were technical and I would say a good 80% of the questions were repeated. It felt like the interviewers were all disconnected and had no clue what had already been asked. After the 5th interview HR starting negotiating salary with me. The number was shockingly low even by Montreal standard. Two days later I was told that due to a change of policy they needed 3 more interviews which I had to continue with.

My perception was that the hiring process was extremely disorganized. It made me wonder if they managed to hire anyone in the end because nobody who is good at what they do would be around for longer than a month before they would get hired by another company. Another observation was that with most interviewers being in London, Montreal felt like a supporting office with projects driven outside.