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

Software Engineer

Microsoft
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5 rounds | 6 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Preparation
Duration: 6 Months
Topics: Data Structures, Problem Solving, Caching, High level Design, Current project knowledge
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Solve basic data structure problems
Tip 2 : HOW AND WHERE TO USE CACHE< LB and DB

Application process
Where: Referral
Eligibility: No
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 : Mention Data structure, problem solving in your CV, if you are applying from service based org
Tip 2 : Mention only those products for which you have fair understanding

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date10 Jun 2021
Coding problem1
Hard
0/120
Asked in companies
MicrosoftMakeMyTripAmazon

For a given two-dimensional integer array/list of size (N x M), print it in a spiral form. That is, you need to print in the order followed for every iteration:

a. First row(left to right)
b. Last column(top to bottom)
c. Last row(right to left)
d. First column(bottom to top)

 Mind that every element will be printed only once.

Refer to the Image:

Spiral path of a matrix

Problem approach

1. First Explained the solution using 2 stacks.
2. Interviewer wants to optimize space and asked me to use some other data structure instead of stack
3. Used Deque/ Doubly Link list
4 Wrote production ready code

Try solving now
02
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date10 Jun 2021
Coding problem2

1. Longest Univalue Path

Moderate
10m average time
90% success
0/80
Asked in companies
AmazonShareChatMicrosoft

You are given a binary tree, the task is to find out the length of the longest path which contains nodes with the exact same value. It is not necessary for the path to pass through the root of the binary tree.

Between two nodes, the length of the path can be defined as the number of edges contained between them.

For example, consider the following binary tree:

            7
           / \
          7   7
         / \   \
        8  3    7

For the above tree, the length of the longest path where each node in the path has the same value is 3 and path is 7 -> 7 -> 7 -> 7.

Problem approach

1. Explained the approach
2. Interviewer asked the time complexity
3. Then asked to write code
4. Verified different use cases

Try solving now

2. 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

Problem approach

1. Asked to write the code
2. Asked to dry run the code
3. Tried running the code

Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date10 Jul 2021
Coding problem1

1. System Design Question

Design LRU

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Explain what is LRU
Tip 2 : Explain with example
Tip 3 : Write runnable code

04
Round
Medium
Online Coding Interview
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date10 Jun 2021
Coding problem1

1. System Design Question

design paste bin

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Write down P1 requirements
Tip 2 : Write down different components
Tip 3 : Take each P1 requirement one by one

05
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration60 minutes
Interview date11 Jun 2021
Coding problem1

1. Technical Questions

Discuss about current work ex
Asked to solve one design problem
- There are certain services running on cloud to process images
- You are uploading heavy image. How these images will be processed

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Discuss different possible solutions coming to your mind
Tip 2 : Interviewer will give you hint which approach is correct
Tip 3 : This round is mainly a discussion round

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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