Microsoft interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

SDE - 1

Microsoft
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4 rounds | 4 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Preparation
Duration: 6 months
Topics: Data structures and algorithms, trees, dynamic programming, operating system
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Practice implementation of code end to end
Tip 2 : CV should have many projects and published paper to be shortlisted
Tip 3 : Focus on optimization 

Application process
Where: Other
Eligibility: CV shortlisted
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 : Include projects in your resume.
Tip 2 : Keep resume of one page, but utilize the entire page efficiently

Interview rounds

01
Round
Hard
Online Coding Interview
Duration90 minutes
Interview date18 Nov 2017
Coding problem1

Online coding contest, focus on DP and trees

1. 9268 | Chess Tournament

Easy
20m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
HSBCOlaMicrosoft

Chess tournament is going to be organized in Ninjaland. There will be C chess players going to attend the tournament. All the players will be staying in a hotel. The hotel has N free rooms available for the players, where one player will choose one room to live in. The ith room is at position[i] in the hotel. All rooms are in distinct positions.

Focus level of a chess player is defined as the minimum distance between his room and the room of another player. The overall focus of a tournament is defined as the minimum focus level among all players. You as an organizer obviously want the overall focus as high as possible so you assign the rooms to players such that the overall focus is as high as possible.

For example,
let say we have 3 players and 5 rooms available and the rooms are at positions:  1 2 3 4 6
Here the optimal allocation is in rooms 1 3 6 and the overall focus level is 2.
Problem approach

I knew the approach since I had practiced from topCoder

Try solving now
02
Round
Hard
Face to Face
Duration45 minutes
Interview date21 Nov 2017
Coding problem1

It was conducted on the GHCI conference itself. It was held in a Microsoft interview room at the career fair of the conference. This was primarily based on my coding abilities and understanding how to optimise a solution

1. Check if given words are present in a string

Hard
35m average time
60% success
0/120
Asked in companies
MicrosoftAmazonQuikr

Given a string 'S' and a list 'wordList' that consists of 'N' distinct words. Let 'Wi' denote word at index 'i' in 'wordList'. For each word 'Wi' in 'wordList', you need to determine whether it is present in string 'S' or not. Return a boolean array, where a boolean value at index ‘i’ represents whether the word ‘Wi’ is present in the string ‘S’ or not.

Problem approach

I thought tries might be useful here or hashing. I went with tries and it worked

Try solving now
03
Round
Medium
Face to Face
Duration30 minutes
Interview date21 Nov 2017
Coding problem1

This was a system design round.

1. System Design

Design an app similar to tinder, where people connect on the basis of tastes, which they specify as strings in their profile.

Problem approach

Tip 1 : I had to estimate that there would be a lot of many to many string mappings. The main point was to determine whether to show all the matches or a top few
Tip 2 : Ask the interviewer clarification questions
Tip 3 : Improve the first solution you suggested. Can watch YouTube videos for system design

04
Round
Easy
HR Round
Duration20 minutes
Interview date21 Nov 2017
Coding problem1

This was the HR round and only typical HR questions were asked.

1. HR Questions

Three Questions were asked in this round: -

1. Why do you want Microsoft?

2. What are your career goals? 

3. Why will you not accept the other offer you already have from a banking company?

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Be frank. Show your passion for tech
Tip 2 : Share your genuine opinion about the company
Tip 3 : Don't be afraid. Try to enjoy the round with the interviewer. Don't forget to ask follow up questions

Here's your problem of the day

Solving this problem will increase your chance to get selected in this company

Skill covered: Programming

What is recursion?

Choose another skill to practice
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