Microsoft | SDE2 - L61 | India

Current employment
Status: Tier 3 College in India, Not from IIT, NIT, IIITs
Position: SDE1 at Amazon
Location: Bengaluru, India

Total Rounds (in summary): 1 OA + 4 Technical Rounds + 1 Hiring Manager Round

Background:
Mid-February 2024: One day I sat appiled around 40 Job roles at Microsoft for SDE2 positions via their careers page without any referral. Few days later I got call from MSFT recuriter asking about my availability for Codility Online Assessment test. I asked her to schedule that on next day.

Round1: Codility Online Assessment Test (70 minutes)
There were 2 questions to be solved within 70 minutes and there were hidden test case that runs when you submit the entire test. I was told by recuriter that if you able to pass 80% of the total test cases on both the problems you'll be moving forward.

DSA problem: Based on array - very basic question it was - I don't know the exact question but I solved it in 10mins
Debugging question: I need the add 2 lines at max in order to make code working, code was of some BFS question. I solved it in 5mins

Recuriter called me after 3 days asked my availability for next 2 rounds on DSA - I asked her to schedule both rounds on same day.

Round2: Technical round - 1 (DSA)
Very sweet interviewer He was based out of Redmond office of MS, We had disucussion on background/introduction, asked about my previous project at my current company. Then He asked me two DSA questions:

1st problem: Similar to https://leetcode.com/problems/asteroid-collision/ - Solved this in 20minutes with test cases and I had to run the code also.
2nd problem: https://leetcode.com/problems/merge-in-between-linked-lists/ - Solved this next 30 minutes with test cases and again have to run the code on editor.
Next 5mins we spent on generall chit-chat, work-culture, team/org etc

Round3: Technical round - 2 (DSA)
Again very friendly interviewer. We started with generall introduction then He asked something from my resume for 10minutes. Then He asked me one DSA problem

DSA problem: Similar to https://leetcode.com/problems/cheapest-flights-within-k-stops/ but with few tweaks and He as was asking many follow-ups question around C++ while I was writing the solution in C++. I solved this problem in next 30 minutes again have to write test-cases and run the code.
As far as I know last 15minutes were spent on project discussion, challenges faced and my freelance career.

Recuriter called me after 2 days and said 2 DSA rounds went very well and they are moving forward with LLD & HLD round. And asked my availiability for the same. I asked to schedule both rounds on the same day (one early morning IST & another in late night IST)

Round4: Technical round - 3 (Low Level Design)
Interviewer was very welcoming and charming. We again started with introduction and Why I want to join microsoft, then He asked me one LLD question

LLD Question: We have many transaction stored in the DB, we need to make a system that able to filter the transaction based on customer_id, start & end duration, etc provided by the user
I started with generall details about filtering system and devised my solution based on interfaces, classes. I was able to solve this problem in about next 30min using C++. He followed up by putting thread safe implementation - I used mutex, locks and able to simulate various filter calls coming in using test cases and able to run. He seems statisfied.
Last 5 mins I asked about Org for which I was getting interviewed.

Round5: Technical round - 4 (High Level Design)
A senior engineer came in. After a very short introduction He asked me about my most challenging project at Amazon - This discussion went on for about 30min, He asked many to-and-fro questions on why those design decisions were taken on project. Then He asked me to "Design Cloud-Logging System"
I used my i-Pad to draw diagrams on Microsoft OneNote :D by sharing screen on my laptop. I designed system like how CloudWatch logs works on AWS. He didn't asked any question while I was discussing the high level aspects of system. I think He was statisfied.
Last 10 min we spent on Org projects, How many folks are working?, etc etc

This round went for round 1 Hour 20 minutes

Next day early morning recuriter called me to congratulate - saying I did very well in all of the interviews, and asked me about my availability for Hiring Manager Round. I asked to schedule it after 5days

Round6: Hiring Manager Round
Interviewer was such a gentleman, very calm and composed. He was VP at Microsoft (L70).
He said you already solved 900+ problems on leetcode, So He will not ask any DSA problem rather He asked "Microsoft wanted to open a data center. How many physical devices would be required there?" I was shocked hearing this problem - I first started with technical aspect - Traffic, Load, Storage required etc etc He hinted don't be technical Just think what is important in one existing data-center to know how many physical devices are there. I said Eletricity, Area required, etc etc. Disucussion was very interesting - He said we will offer you for sure at the end.

After 1 week my Recuriter reached out to me saying you'll now receive offer letter "soon".

This "soon" took next 3 weeks to finally get Offer Letter \uD83C\uDF89 : )

Compensation: https://leetcode.com/discuss/compensation/4918607/Microsoft-or-SDE2-or-L61-or-India-Offer