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      Senior Software Development Engineer Interview

      Jul 8, 2016
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Redmond, WA
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Jun 2016

      Interview

      I am posting and rating this interview experience as negative only because of one person(Sr SDE) that was involved in the process, I will get back to her behavior later. First thing first,Hiring manager and product manager were really nice persons, they were very professional. My first interview was with product manager, which went for 45 min and I was asked some ethical, behavioral and product related questions. My 2nd interview was a technical loop with Sr SDE, about which I will discuss later in a separate paragraph. My 3rd interview was with Hiring manager, which lasted beyond time limit of 60 min, I was asked some tough questions but we both were enjoying conversation and he seemed impressed with my talk and experience. After the interview I was told by hiring manager that he will take hiring decision by eod tom only as he will meet everyone today evening or tom morning. After the interview I had the gut feeling that I nailed it, as I aced all 3 interviews. Though I can't comment on how my answers to behavioral and ethical questions were taken, but for some questions,I was told on the spot by product manager that what I answered was a correct answer and this was to test core values. My only concern was technical interview even though I nailed every question asked, because of behavior and conduct of interviewer, now lets jump to what happened in technical round. I was introduced to Sr SDE( who was a tester for most of her career at MS, I think she was made SDE because of last year's changes in MS) by Product Manager. It was supposed to be a lunch interview for about 90 min, with lunch from 12:00 to 12:30 and from 12:30 to 1:30 continue interview in conference room. I greeted this lady but I was not given any response. She ignored the schedule and directly took me to conference room for interview. She didn't had copy of my Resume, I had 4/5 copies of my resume with me, so I shared one with her. She asked me a TSQL question on white board, which I resolved in like 5 sec, she then got surprised and tried to made it complicated, I resolved that too quickly, then she asked me what if each of these intervals are dynamic in nature, I resolved that too, she told me it will not work, I told her lets test to check and it worked. She accepted that it will work. Then she asked me ranking function related TSQL question, which again I resolved in 10 sec, she then asked me how you will test it. I told her about 7/8 test cases and how you can write all these in VS DB unit testing project. My resume has lot of other stuff like Big data, Machine learning, Python, Java and data science. It was very clear that she didn't had any experience with any of these as she completely ignored asking any question related to these. She then asked me how you will predict sales amount for our product, which is very open ended question, I talked about it for like 10 min(discussed different feature selection, model selection and validation tech and challenges around curse of dimensionality and how to take care of it) and it became clear that she didn't understood what I am talking and also she didn't asked me a single follow up question. Only question she asked me, how much out of these I have implemented. With her facial expression and postures I became sure that she didn't came prepared for interview and she also don't know much about ML/data science/Datawarehouse/Big Data/MPP and analytical technologies, for which she was supposed to interview me. She then asked me do you know .NET(not listed on my resume). I said no I don't , but then she replied, oh you know Java( I said yes as it was on my resume, expecting some follow up algorithm question or oop question), but she didn't asked me any question related to algorithm or OOP. She then ended interview asking if I have any questions. After the interview she took me to lunch area in Microsoft and though it was a lunch interview sponsored by MS, I PAID FROM MY POCKET FOR THE LUNCH as she pointed me to pay! After that she just wanted to leave me unattended(Though my MS issued ID said, I should be escorted all times for security reasons), I asked her can I sit in the conference room till start of my next interview, she replied yes and then she asked me to walk myself to hiring manager room after 15 min and she left me unescorted for next 15 min. I greeted her before she left, she didn't replied back and just left. Only idea I got at the end of this interview with her was that she didn't liked me at all from the very go. Later it took me 5 min to search for hiring manager room. Though I am none to comment on the competencies and professional behavior of any individual. But this is the last thing I was expecting from a Microsoft Senior Software Developer. I would definitely like Microsoft HR to look into this issue.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Some very good question on ethics and product design.
      Answer question
      13

      Other Senior Software Development Engineer Interview Reviews for Microsoft

      Senior Software Development Engineer Interview

      Jul 25, 2022
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Seattle, WA
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Easy interview

      Application

      I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Jul 2022

      Interview

      I did an interview for a Senior SDE at a hiring event. The process consisted of an online assessment followed by a day of onsite interviews. 4 rounds covering algorithms and design. The questions were fairly easy and I did very well in all the rounds. Cannot disclose due to NDA. I was expecting an offer and to my surprise got a generated auto response indicating a reject after a day. I had constant communication with the recruiter during the whole process and after the reject there was zero response from the recruiter regarding feedback. I honestly believe that the interview was just for headcount since I could not think of one reason why I could be rejected. I also saw the position that I applied for indicated "applications are not accepted" even before the interview.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      algorithms, design, data structures, behavioral
      Answer question

      Senior Software Development Engineer Interview

      Mar 5, 2019
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Bengaluru
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bengaluru) in Feb 2019

      Interview

      I was asked at 8:30 for a hiring event. Had the first round from 8:45am, it was about Data Structure and problem solving. I solved the problems and further variants, thought it went excellent. Then had to wait almost an hour before the second interviewer came. He himself said he wasn't prepared and it was a last minute. Then he proceeded to ask a math related coding question. I couldn't remember the property so I needed help, then it turned out the actual algorithm/coding needed was almost trivial. Again I waited an hour without any information and then called up the recruiter and was asked to go for lunch. After lunch, I had a Systems Design round. We started from generic problem to more designs. I thought it went well. The interviewer did say the they didn't have feedback from 2nd round yet, only 1st round. After this, I waited a few rounds and was told the feedback wasn't positive and I am pretty sure it was the feedback from 2nd round and I just had to waste a few hours more due to lack of coordination on the recruiters' part. I should mention that the interviewees were polite and nice to talk to.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Common algorithm questions, distributed cache design.
      Answer question

      Senior Software Development Engineer Interview

      Jun 12, 2018
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Herzliya
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Easy interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Microsoft (Herzliya) in Jun 2018

      Interview

      It was defined as a technical interview. It was face-to-face in Microsoft offices in Herzliya (Israel) and took 1,5 hours. I was interviewed by Principal Software Engineer of the group. After a small talk he explained what the group does, what the position's expectations and asked to describe my recent work. We got through my current and previous work places and talk about projects and technologies. After that I was asked two technical questions and the interview ended. During the interview I got positive feedback on all my answers and was told that my experience, specialization and the knowledge fits the group and the position. On the next day I got a rejection letter. It seem like the whole process had nothing to do with hiring a person, but to present that interviews for the position are being held. It left me frustrated and willing never deal with Microsoft again, at least not in Israel

      Interview questions [2]

      Question 1

      Given two one directional linked list find if they merge and the node where they merge. Write a pseudo-code. Make solution with O(1) in space and O(n) in time where n is longest list length.
      1 Answer

      Question 2

      Given a string with single digit numbers and four simple arithmetic operations in a form of string that recorded in postfix (reverse Pascal) notation, perform the operation and validate the recording. Write pseudo-code that returns result or informs about malformed recording.
      1 Answer
      2

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