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

SDE - 1

Microsoft
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4 rounds | 3 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Preparation
Duration: 12 Months
Topics: Data Structure, Operating System, Algorithms, Computer Networks, Quantitative Aptitude
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Solve as many questions as you can
Tip 2 : Practice Quantitate aptitude.
Tip 3 : Don't lie on your resume.

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 8 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 : Have some good projects.
Tip 2 : Don't lie on your resume.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Video Call
Duration45 Minutes
Interview date11 Sep 2020
Coding problem2

Had some small chit-chat regarding how Work from Home is going on for him and me. Later he introduced himself and asked the same.
Coming to technical questions, he asked me the algorithm and also asked me to code the questions mentioned below. Discussed the time complexities and edge cases.

1. Spiral Matrix

Easy
0/40
Asked in companies
GE (General Electric)AmazonSalesforce

You are given a N x M matrix of integers, return the spiral path of the matrix

Example Of Spiral Path

Spiral Path

Try solving now

2. Group Anagrams

Moderate
30m average time
70% success
0/80
Asked in companies
AmazonAtlassianThales

You have been given an array/list of strings 'inputStr'. You are supposed to return the strings as groups of anagrams such that strings belonging to a particular group are anagrams of one another.

An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase. We can generalize this in string processing by saying that an anagram of a string is another string with the same quantity of each character in it, in any order.

Note:
The order in which the groups and members of the groups are printed does not matter.
For example:
inputStr = {"eat","tea","tan","ate","nat","bat"}
Here {“tea”, “ate”,” eat”} and {“nat”, “tan”} are grouped as anagrams. Since there is no such string in “inputStr” which can be an anagram of “bat”, thus, “bat” will be the only member in its group.
Try solving now
02
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration45 Minutes
Interview date11 Sep 2020
Coding problem1

This round started without any introduction, and he directly jumped into the question. Asked me about the algorithm, and later coded it and ran it. And then he asked me to optimize it. Finally, he asked me if I had any questions.

1. Design Tic-Tac-Toe

Moderate
30m average time
70% success
0/80
Asked in companies
AmazonUberAdobe

Ninja has to design a 2 players game Tic-Tac-Toe played on an ‘N’ * ‘N’ grid.

Ninja has to assume the following rules while playing the game:

This game is played between two people (Player 1 and Player 2). Player 1 chooses ‘X' and Player 2 chooses ‘O’ to mark their cells. A move is guaranteed to be valid and is placed on an empty block.

A player who successfully places 'N' of their marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row wins the game. Once a winning condition is reached, no more moves are allowed.

As Ninja is busy planning his strategy, he asks you for help. Your task is to complete the function ‘move(row, col, player)’ where ‘row’ and ‘col’ represent the current row and column of the grid ‘player’ P (either 1 or 2) chooses to place his sign.

The function must return an integer which is either 0, 1, and 2 representing:

0: No one wins.
1: Player 1 wins.
2: Player 2 wins.

Example:

Let us assume if ‘N’ = 3 and player 1 places ‘X’ and player 2 places ‘O’ on the board.

Try solving now
03
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date11 Sep 2020
Coding problem0

This was the last round of the day. He introduced himself and asked how I reduced API response times(which I mentioned in my resume). We discussed it for 5-10 min. Then he asked about one of the projects. Discussed use cases and complete design of the implementation. Then, he asked me a question that is similar to System Design. Finally, he asked me if I had any questions.

 

04
Round
Medium
HR Round
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date16 Sep 2020
Coding problem0

He started off by asking me to open my mobile phone and told me to open any messaging application and type something. Then, he pointed out to look at the suggestions after and while typing a word. Then, he asked me to design that functionality for a newly bought mobile. There are multiple ways to do it using Tries and Ternary Search Tree, we discussed some of them and one in-depth. Later, he asked me about Distributed File Systems and why and when they are used. And also about how the Single Point of Failure issue handled. By this time almost 50 min was completed. Then, he asked me to write the code for the Sudoku solver. I explained the algorithm and gave a walkthrough, and he was convinced. But, when I ran it the test cases were not passing due to a very small bug. This round happened for around 1 and a half hours.

Almost a week later, I received a call from Microsoft telling me that I was selected. I was more than happy. This is like dream come true for me.

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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