I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bellevue, WA) in Jun 2021
Interview
Initial Teams video pre-screen "whiteboarding" a theoretical design followed by a 6-hour interview circuit with 4 1-hour interview sessions taking place on a single day. Each interviewer decides whether you're writing code or whiteboarding the solution (sometimes they give you the flexibility to pick which). Two were clear with requirements and I thought very helpful with their hints, while the other two did not present in a clear way. As always, if I had seen the particular leetcode questions ahead of the interview I'd have done much better (partially because I wouldn't need to rely on the interviewers to clarify reqs, etc.). They were all what I would classify as "leetcode medium" questions.
I feel that doing these interviews with MSFT and AMZN and others is a decent way to prepare as I haven't really seen technical interviews that were harder than those from MSFT and AMZN, however you really have to grind for several months (after work) or a few weeks (not holding down a full time job) at least to clear enough of these potential leetcode problems to where you will have seen (ideally) all of them already when you get into the interview. That's always been my gripe with these intervews- anyone who passes them has probably completed the same basic problem on HackerRank and it's not "really" a test of coding ability so much as it's a test of memory.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Each interviewer is supposed to cover one or two of Microsoft's core values- they ask a question to give you the opportunity to describe something about your work history that demonstrates the core value/core values. In practice only around half asked these kinds of non-technical questions.
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