Microsoft

“Second problem on the OA had AI assistance baked in and i genuinely had no idea if i was supposed to lean on it or treat it like a crutch to avoid.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Microsoft, Online Assessment (OA) round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“Covered scaling, reliability, and idempotency but completely blanked on caching.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Microsoft, Onsite - Multi Round round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“The spam_folder filter tripped me up first.” The rest of the author's notes on Data Scientist interview at Microsoft, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This one is broad in a sneaky way.” The rest of the author's notes on Product Manager interview at Microsoft, Onsite - System Design / Architecture round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This is the kind of question that sounds manageable until you realize they want specifics on every single handoff.” The rest of the author's notes on Data Scientist interview at Microsoft, Onsite - Multi Round round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“The collision bug in shorten is the obvious one, and I spotted it pretty quick.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Microsoft, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“Felt straightforward at first.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Microsoft, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I knew union-find was involved but kept second-guessing myself on the two-case split: when a node ends up with two parents vs when there's a cycle but no double-parent.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Microsoft, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“My first instinct was to BFS from every empty room individually and find the nearest gate.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Microsoft, Technical Phone Screen round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“This question is doing a lot of work at once and I underestimated that going in.” The rest of the author's notes on Data Scientist interview at Microsoft, Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.