Microsoft | Software Engineer IC2/IC3 | Redmond WA | Reject

Hi,

I wanted to share my recent Microsoft Hiring Event (Aug 01) experience. There were 4 rounds with 15 min break in between and a 1hr lunch break after the 2nd round.

1. Round 1: https://leetcode.com/problems/kth-largest-element-in-an-array/description/ , follow up + 2 Behavioral questions
2. Round 2: This was supposed to be HLD round but the interviewer deep dived into my recent project, like every part of it, basically you must know your project inside out. + 2 behavioral.
3. Round 3: Return the Shortest path between source and destination in a grid, you will be given source and destination coordinates. + 1 behavioral questions.
4. Round 4: Was asked to convert a string into numbers using TDD principle and the mapping of numbers to alphabets is like that of traditional phone keypad.
   ex: "abc": 2, "def": 3 so on.. if input is "b fz", output is 2203339999. Asked lot of questions around the constraints and was able to code and execute successfully the interviewer was also convinced. + 2 behavioral questions.

Rounds 1,2,4 went really well, Round3 my code was not returning the shortest path. Feedback was reject! The recruiter informed me in 2 business days about the outcome. I just feel terrible about missing this opportunity. Hope it helps. All the best for your interview!