SDE 2 at Microsoft

How it went

Round by round

1. 1

   Technical Round 1 (DSA)60 min

   Virtual interview, greeted the interviewer, and after a quick intro, was given the classic Skyline Problem. I knew it was a tough one, but thankfully I’d practiced before.

   • Skyline Problem
2. 2

   Technical Round 2 (DSA)60 min

   This round was a marathon, three coding problems back-to-back

   • Flip Game
   • Kth Smallest Element in an Array
   • Palindrome Removal
3. 3

   Design60 min

   This round was split, first DSA problem, then a system design problem I was given the system design problem, online messaging app like WhatsApp or Slack that could support millions of users in real time I structured it around core APIs, WebSockets (with fallbacks), NoSQL storage sharded by chat, Redis caching, and load balancing for scale. I covered fault tolerance, end-to-end encryption, and offline message queuing. The discussion flowed well, and explaining the why behind each choice made it engaging.

   • Most Profit Assigning Work
4. 4

   AA60 min

   The final round was technical + behavioral, a mix of problem-solving and getting to know me. Problem: Given a binary matrix, find the smallest rectangle covering all 1s. General Questions

   • Current project
   • Behavioral
   • Strengths
   • Weaknesses

What came up