SDE 1 at Microsoft

How it went

What they would tell you

How to prepare

Round by round

1. 1

   Online Assessment60 min

   Coding problem something similar to binary tree maximum path sum And hard level string-based problem

   • Binary Tree Maximum Path Sum
2. 2

   Technical Round 160 min

   The interviewer introduced himself and asked me to do the same Once the introductions were over, he presented a coding problem and gave me about 40 minutes I don’t remember the exact question now, but it was something that involved using the Floyd–Warshall algorithm for shortest path computation

   • Floyd warshall algorithm
3. 3

   Technical Round 260 min

   Questions about my resume, tech stack, and projects I’ve worked on. We spoke in detail about one of my recent projects After that, he moved on to LLD and asked questions around Structural and Creational Design Patterns. It was not about definitions but about understanding, like How would you use Factory or Adapter in your system? or Why would you choose one pattern over another? I explained with examples, and he seemed to appreciate the practical angle

4. 4

   Technical Round 360 min

   My interviewer had over a decade of experience, and that instantly added a bit of pressure, he began with few basic HLD questions, like caching, load balancing in the context of HLD

5. 5

   HM Round60 min

   My final interview was taken by senior lead with 15+ years of experience at Microsoft, he started by giving a brief but detailed overview of his journey and the kind of projects his team works on. He asked me to explain all the projects I had worked on so far, and then requested me to pick one project for a detailed discussion. Then came the Why Microsoft? question, which I had prepared for by reflecting on earlier interviews and what stood out to me about the company. We wrapped up with several behavioral questions, how I handle conflicts, work pressure, and collaborate in teams.

What came up