Microsoft interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview
SDE - Intern
Microsoft
4 rounds | 7 Coding
problems
Selected Interview preparation journey
Journey
Hello all, I am Rachit Kumar from NIT Manipur. I was always having a keen interest in the field of computer science. Computers fascinate me. I started coding when I was in 11th standard I learned C and C++. Then when I was in the first year of my graduation, I started to get my hands on DSA, which is the most important factor or key skill that you need to have. It has been a long journey till now but continuous practice of DSA is the key point.
Application story
I was thankful to be in NIT Manipur, as every giant company comes here to hire candidates for job and internship too. Microsoft is also one of them, and it was my dream company too. I took part in the hiring drive of Microsoft for intern hiring. The interview process was very fluent and finally I got a chance to work as an intern in my dream company.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I was selected fo the role because I was fluent in my communication skills, and I was also able to solve the coding questions in the technical rounds. But the key is not to jump to the optimal solutions directly, instead build up the optimal solution starting from the brute force approach.
Preparation
Duration: 2 Months
Topics: Algorithms, Data Structures, Database Management System, Networking, Operating Systems, etc.
Do practice lot of data structures based questions as these are the most important part of the interview in product based company. Also, I used Codezen of Coding Ninjas to solve questions as there you can found questions topic wise with difficulty level also. So I recommend that.
Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: Above 70%
I guess there are three most important things in your resume, your skills, projects & experience. Try to build a simple, expressive & genuine resume. By genuine I mean don't put things that you are not confident of, first be confident then put it.
Interview rounds
01
Round
Medium
Online Coding Test
Duration120 minutes
Interview date28 Jul 2020
Coding problem2
This round consisted of two coding questions.
1. Intersection of Linked Lists
Easy
25m average time
73% success
0/40
Asked in companies
There are two singly linked lists in a system. By some programming error, the end node of one of the linked list got linked to the second list, forming an inverted Y shaped list. Write a program to get the point where two linked list merge.
Y ShapedLinked List
Above diagram shows an example with two linked list having 15 as intersection point.
Problem approach
I simply used linked list traversal to solve this question with the concept involving the difference of lengths of both linked list.
2. Find Number of Islands
Moderate
34m average time
60% success
0/80
Asked in companies
You are given a 2-dimensional array/list having N rows and M columns, which is filled with ones(1) and zeroes(0). 1 signifies land, and 0 signifies water.
A cell is said to be connected to another cell, if one cell lies immediately next to the other cell, in any of the 8 directions (2 vertical, 2 horizontal, and 4 diagonal).
A group of connected cells having value 1 is called an island. Your task is to find the number of such islands present in the matrix.
Problem approach
- I used DFS concept to solve this question and visited all the elements of 2d array which are unvisited and counted the total number of islands.
02
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration45 minutes
Interview date28 Jul 2020
Coding problem2
This was face to face interview round.
1. Sum Between 0s
Easy
20m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Given a linked list which contains a series of numbers separated by “0”. Add them and store them in the linked list in-place.
Note :There will not be continuous zeros in input.
Examples:
Input : 1->2->3->0->5->4->0->3->2->0
Output : 6->9->5
Input : 1->2->3->4
Output : 1->2->3->4
Problem approach
- I took a sum variable and add current element data to sum if it’s not zero and if it is zero change the previous pointers in the given list.
2. Delete Leaf Nodes with Value X
Moderate
27m average time
0/80
Asked in companies
You are given a binary tree, in which the data present in the nodes are integers. You are also given an integer X.
Your task is to delete all the leaf nodes with value X. In the process, if the newly formed leaves also have value X, you have to delete them too.
Problem approach
- I simply used postorder traversal and deleted the leaf node if it satisfy the given condition of question that is it should be leaf node and should have value equal to x.
03
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date28 Jan 2020
Coding problem2
This was face to face interview round.
1. Delete alternate nodes
Easy
20m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Given a Singly Linked List, starting from the second node delete all alternate nodes of it. For example, if the given linked list is 1->2->3->4->5 then your function should convert it to 1->3->5, and if the given linked list is 1->2->3->4 then convert it to 1->3.
Problem approach
- I kept track of previous of the node to be deleted and then changed the next link of the previous node and then free the memory allocated for the node. The interviewer was pretty much impressed by my approach.
2. Remove Duplicates from string
Moderate
25m average time
0/80
Asked in companies
Given a string S, the task is to remove all the duplicates in the given string.
Problem approach
- I simply gave the interviewer a hashing based approach and made changes in the original string and he was pretty much satisfied by my approach.
04
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration90 minutes
Interview date28 Jan 2020
Coding problem1
1. Search a Word in a 2D Grid of characters
Moderate
30m average time
50% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Search a Word in a 2D Grid of characters
Given a 2D grid of characters and a word, find all occurrences of the given word in the grid. A word can be matched in all 8 directions at any point. Word is said to be found in a direction if all characters match in this direction (not in zig-zag form).
The 8 directions are, Horizontally Left, Horizontally Right, Vertically Up, Vertically Down and 4 Diagonal directions.
Problem approach
- I gave the interviewer backtracking approach and he asked whether I can improve it little more.I told him that I can use prefix checks also. Then I made use of it and he was satisfied with that approach.
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Skill covered: Programming
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