Microsoft interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview
SDE - 2
Microsoft
4 rounds | 4 Coding
problems
Selected Interview preparation journey
Preparation
Duration: 3 months
Topics: Data Structures, Graphs Algorithms, Dynamic programming, OOP concepts, Low level design
Tip 1 : Practice problems with consistency
Tip 2 : Learn and try to up solve
Tip 3 : Enjoy each problem and try different ways of solving it
Tip 4 : Brush up OOP concepts
Tip 5 : Practice hands on for Low level design by white board coding
Application process
Where: Linkedin
Eligibility: No criteria
Tip 1 : Have 1-2 good quality projects.
Tip 2 : Try to maintain 1 page resume.
Tip 3 : Put things which you have in depth knowledge about in resume.
Interview rounds
01
Round
Medium
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date25 Aug 2021
Coding problem1
A problem solving round with 1 problem on DP. It was on a platform with a text editor provided. Was expected to solve the problem and write the code. Post initial discussion on the solution approaches came up with an optimized solution using Dynamic Programming and wrote the solution. Then some discussion on the Time and Space complexity of the solution.
Interviewer was satisfied with the solution and also dry ran with 1 test case.
1. Possible Words From A Phone Number
Hard
55m average time
45% success
0/120
Asked in companies
After years of research, Ninja is finally able to invent the time machine, and now he is back to the good old days when T9 keypads were being used in mobile phones.
Being a curious person, Ninja wants to find out all possible strings that can be formed by pressing the keys of the phone.
Formally, you are given a string S, that consists of digits from 2-9 (both inclusive), your task is to find out all the possible strings that can be formed from the input string by mapping the digits to the letters as in a T9 keypad. Then, print the strings in a lexicographically sorted order.
For Example:
If S = “34”, then all the possible letters that can be formed from string S are {“dg”, “dh”, “di”, “eg”, “eh”, “ei”, “fg”, “fh”, “fi”}.
Problem approach
Step 1 : Explained the brute force approach of checking all possible n digit number and incrementing a counter when it satisfies our condition.
Step 2 : Time complexity was exponential so interviewer asked to optimize it.
Step 3 : Came up with a recursive approach and told the recursive relation.
Step 4 : To further optimize, memorized the approach using 2-d DP and explained to interviewer.
Step 5 : Interviewer was satisfied so proceeded with it, and wrote the code, dry ran on a test case.
Recursive relation:
dp[digit][n] = sum( dp[digit][n-1] + dp[digit-1][n-1] ... dp[0][n-1] )
where "digit" is the digit it is ending with in an n digit number.
02
Round
Hard
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date25 Aug 2021
Coding problem1
This round happened on the same day after 1st round. It was a Low level design round with one problem to be solved in 60 minutes.
1. System Design Question
Design in memory file system with given necessary features to implement like: ls, cd, mkdir etc.
Problem approach
Tip 1 : Discuss with interviewer till you get clarified with problem.
Tip 2 : Think out aloud on the solution approaches and various trade offs.
Tip 3 : Try to use concepts of OOP like inheritance, polymorphism to follow SOLID and DRY principles.
Tip 4 : Always be open to feedback from interviewer on the design questions as they are mostly subjective.
03
Round
Medium
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date25 Aug 2021
Coding problem1
This round happened on the same day after 2nd round. The platform used was codility. It was a System design/ Low level design round with one problem to be solved in 60min.
1. System Design Question
Design LRU cache implementing various APIs like get(item), put(item), updateCache() etc.
Problem approach
Tip 1 : Discuss with interviewer till you get clarified with problem.
Tip 2 : Think out aloud on the solution approaches and various trade offs.
Tip 3 : Try to use concepts of OOP like inheritance, polymorphism to follow SOLID and DRY principles.
Tip 4 : Always be open to feedback from interviewer on the design questions as they are mostly subjective.
04
Round
Easy
HR Round
Duration30 minutes
Interview date30 Aug 2022
Coding problem1
It was an HR round with focus on the work ethics, culture and my prior experiences. The recruiter was trying to test my situation handling capability by asking different scenario based questions.
1. Basic HR Questions
What are your previous work experiences?
Who is your role model?
How do you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10?
Here's your problem of the day 
Solving this problem will increase your chance to get selected in this company
Skill covered: Programming
How do you remove whitespace from the start of a string?
Choose another skill to practice
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