I applied through university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2012
Interview
Standard 4 back to back interview process, Questions were not very tough but they expected for proper code. Note: you have to write code in white board.
Prepare interview questions (from glassdoor, cracking coding interview, careercup etc) and practice writing in whitepaper. And follow recent interview questions from Microsoft.
Interview questions [4]
Question 1
1. Given two sets, find intersection and subtraction
• A intersection B
• A - B
• B - A
Find all in single function, traverse the sets only once
function(string[] a, string[] b)
a ={"abc", "def"} ; b = {"def", "xyz"}
a intersection B = {"def"}
a - b = {"abc"}
b - a = {"xyz"}
2. Do same function in multi-processor environment
How to improve performance / parallelization ? How to use locks
3. Do same function in distributed environment ( in multiple machine env)
Some discussion about bloom filters and how to improve performance
4. Questions about database live migration project,
How create and update statements work during live migration ?
5. Search in Rotated Sorted array
Will this work in all cases ?
check in this case => 7 7 7 7 7 7 1 7 7 7 7
Asked me to write code for this ..
6. Find a word in N x N word board
bool find(char[][] board, char word)
7. Given a function name, its number of arguments and possible options for each arguments, generate all combination of test cases
fun(int a, int b, int c)
a can take {1,2,3}
b can take {4,5}
c can take {6,7,8,9}
We have to generate all 24 combinations.
8. Design question,
Monitor tool for checking the number of requests and size of data got by each user, and reporting if an user exceed limit (number and size).
You have N number of front end servers getting the requests from LB. front end servers contact back end servers for serving the requests.
9. Serialize a BST and search for a key from the file
Performance : average log(n)
Node structure
struct Node {
Node *left;
Node *right;
int key;
char* string;
}
In file u can use below functions
seek(number of bytes) -> moves to n bytes from current location
read() -> reads one byte
I applied through university. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bengaluru)
Interview
OA was taken, it was easy-medium consisting of a string problem and a DP problem. Technical Interview 1 was taken where they asked tree traversals using iteration and construction of trees using traversal
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Space Complexity of Traversal, also explain Morris Traversal
The entire process only had two rounds and it was really simple. Each round was around 45 minutes to an hour with a current Microsoft engineer and they just ask you a typical leetcode style question. There was also a behavioral round that was really simple.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The first round was a typically leetcode question that was really easy. The second round was a little bit harder. It was about having a nxn square made out of 0s and 1s and it wants you to compute what the square looks like if it was rotated.
I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft (Belgrade, Central Serbia) in Apr 2026
Interview
It was a really enjoyable experience overall. Although I didn’t get the position, the interview itself was great, and I truly appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the role, the team, and the company.