I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Microsoft (Sydney) in Apr 2013
Interview
My first interview was a brief phone screening which was just about me and my projects.
I was then invited to join an online group meeting on Microsoft Lync which is similar to Skype, during which a member of HR spoke to all candidates. They discussed the next interview process and answered any questions asked by the candidates (there were about 35 candidates).
A date and time was allocated by follow-up email for each of us to attend the interview in the Sydney Office. On my interview day, there was a total of 5 interviewers (all senior members of the Microsoft team), and 5 interviewees. We each received 3-4, 1on1 interviews in separate rooms, rotating between the interviewers. A decision may be made after 3 interviews or you may be given a final 4th interview if needed.
I went through a total of 4 interviews, 45 minutes each with 15 minute break in-between. The breaks were spent with the other candidates and a member of the HR who discussed about Microsoft’s work and workplace.
The interviews generally went like so:
First 5-15 minutes:
• The interviewer introduces themselves and their job.
• Asks about you, your projects and your past work (basically your resume).
Next 25-35 minutes:
• Interviewer gives you 1-2 problems, you are to provide your implementation on the white board.
• Interviewer asks you to give test cases to your implementation.
Final 5 minutes:
• Any questions you may have for the interviewer.
My Interview Questions:
1. Write a function to determine if a string is a Palindrome
2.
a. Give a list of expected functionality for the “Linked List” data structure
b. Write a function to reverse a Linked List
3.
a. Write a function to determine if a number is prime.
b. Write a function to reverse an integer (i.e. 123 = 321), with O(1) space complexity.
c. Write a function to round a float to the nearest integer (i.e. 3.14 = 3, 3.56 = 4).
4. Write a function to print all paths of a binary tree to a certain depth/length.
Example,
Input:
The following binary tree, searching to a depth of 3
5
/ \
3 7
/ \ / \
1 2 5 8
Output:
5-3-1
5-3-2
5-7-5
5-7-8
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Write a function to reverse an integer (i.e. 123 = 321), with O(1) space complexity.
It started with a 90-minute online assessment, followed by a technical phone screen with one engineer. The OA covered two medium-to-hard algorithm problems. For coding practice, I mainly rely on "LeetCode" to cover different topics. For company-specific interview preparation, I use "Hack2Hire", "LeetCode Discuss", and "1Point3Acres" to find any recent original questions. All of them are helpful platforms. The phone screen included one coding problem and some discussion around edge cases and time complexity.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a list of meeting time intervals, determine if a person could attend all meetings.
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Microsoft in Dec 2024
Interview
I was invited to a technical interview with Microsoft. The interviewer started with a general question: “What happens when you type google.com into your browser?” They asked a few follow-up questions related to that.
After that, they gave me a LeetCode algorithmic question, which was at a hard level. The problem was “Integer to English Words.”
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. What happens when you type google.com into your browser?
2. “Integer to English Words” – LeetCode algorithmic question
Three tech interviews + one hiring manager VO, most of questions are medium to hard leetcode questions. Ask some questions about techniques you written on the resume. But I think they care more about the match of the research and the job.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about the recommendation System you made for the work.
