I applied through college or university. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2016
Interview
Very strong logistical support (in answering questions and travel arrangements) from human resources. On-site interviews were quite taxing. Questions were not overly difficult, a combination of fatigue and ill-preparation in certain areas (Ex. recursion for me) weakened my performance. Overall, a pleasant and very educational experience, despite being fruitless this time around. Currently working elsewhere and excited to maybe try again someday!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a 2-D grid with certain cells (coordinates given) being inaccessible, and a virtual robot starting in the top left corner that can only go down or right, write an algorithm that will guarantee that the robot reaches the bottom right corner of the grid, or determines that a path (given the above constraints) is impossible.
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.
