Microsoft interview notes, page 16 of 60

“The question itself is fine, I knew what an LRU cache was.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer interview at Microsoft, Onsite - Coding / Algorithms round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“They picked a project I hadn't mentally prepped for and just started drilling.” 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.

“My first instinct was plain BFS and I started coding before fully thinking through what 'move' meant here.” 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.

“Classic opener that sounds easy until you're actually in it.” 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.

“They didn't just want the high-level pitch.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer 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.

“I started by trying to define what makes freelancers different from full-time job seekers and that actually helped a lot.” The rest of the author's notes on Product Manager interview at Microsoft, Onsite - Product Sense / Strategy round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I fumbled the opening by jumping straight into features without clarifying who the user even is.” The rest of the author's notes on Product Manager interview at Microsoft, Onsite - Product Sense / Strategy round, covers how they worked through the question, what the panel pushed back on, and what they would do differently.

“I went straight to the customer-facing app and spent way too long on the ordering flow before they nudged me toward the backend.” 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 question has so many layers that I started answering before I'd figured out where I was going.” 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.

“I jumped straight to token bucket because it felt cleanest for burst handling and kind of glossed over fixed vs sliding window.” The rest of the author's notes on Software Engineer 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.