Microsoft Senior Software Engineer | Hyderabad | 25th May | Reject

Microsoft Senior Software Engineer Interview

On May 25th, I participated in a Microsoft online interview process. I had completed an online assessment (OA) a week prior.

Round 1 - OA (70 mins): Microsoft Codility OA

Round 2 - Online Interview (1 hr): This round involved a discussion of projects from my current organization. We reviewed my current projects, discussed the design process, and highlighted key aspects. The interviewer then presented the following problem: Binary Tree Zigzag Level Order Traversal. I implemented a solution but initially made a mistake, printing node.val instead of node.left.val and node.right.val. After identifying and correcting the error, I successfully ran the interviewer's test cases.

Round 3 - Online Interview (1 hr): This round began with questions about how I measured performance improvements in my current projects and the tools used for evaluation. The interviewer then asked me to design a low-level design (LLD) for a tic-tac-toe game, emphasizing the need for O(1) winner determination. I presented a solution, but the interviewer wasn't fully convinced that checking for a winner after each move wouldn't be O(1), given the fixed 3x3 grid size.

Verdict: Rejected.