I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bengaluru) in Feb 2019
Interview
Screening: They invited about 10 people on a week day at 9 in the morning and handed over a sheet of paper containing 2 programming questions to be solved in 1 hour. The questions were at easy and medium difficultly level.
1st, 2nd round: Standard algorithmic questions
3rd, 4th round: Design messenger, online book reader
Positives
- Some interviewers were polite and intelligent
- Timely feedback after each interview
Negatives
- The role and the team to be hired for wasn't clear even till the hiring manager round. They just said it's going to be under Office 365 umbrella but there are tens of teams I could have put in. Not even sure about role being a backend or a client one. They said I would get to know it when I join. They have to understand it's unacceptable for anyone who has some industry experience.
- A lot of wait. They asked us to arrive at 9 but didn't start before 10. The whole day got wasted in the process without any meaningful takeaway.
Online interview round.
There would be 4 interview rounds total. Each one evaluate various skills about you. They will give you hints as well at time required, you need to capture those and rethink on your solution.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design worker thread library where each task will be executed in parallel. Design a system to handle a huge workload.
HR screening, one technical interview with the hiring manager then three interview loop which covered two system design and one dsa round.
System design was intensive and challenging.
It took them 5 weeks to come back with an offer. Background check was completed in a week, got joining date after 3 days.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a system for a startup company that let users post various types of content and get a unique url which can be shared with others to access the content