RejectedSDE 2 at Microsoft
- Difficulty
- Process took
- 2-3 Weeks
- Rounds
- 4
- Format
- Remote
- Applied via
- Other
How it went
Round 2 reminded me that approach = good, implementation = reality Focus on
- Edge cases
- Handling empty structures
- Clear variable naming
- Dry-runs before submitting
What they would tell you
Round 2 reminded me that approach = good, implementation = reality Focus on
- Edge cases
- Handling empty structures
- Clear variable naming
- Dry-runs before submitting
How to prepare
Especially for SDE-2 roles improtant topics
- Graphs (BFS/DFS, Toposort, shortest paths)
- DP (one-dimensional + string DP)
- Hashing & two-pointer patterns
Their background
All interviews wrapped up in under 2.5 weeks
Round by round
- 1
Technical Round 160 min
The panel had two interviewers, started with a mix of random technical questions, followed by one medium-level DSA problem based on Graphs.
- 2
Technical Round 260 min
It was another balanced round of technical discussion and DSA. The questions asked were Distinct Subsequences and Encode and Decode Strings. While I had the right strategies in mind, I stumbled during implementation
- 3
High Level Design Round60 min
The problem statement was quite interesting and deeply evaluative Design a high-throughput file-ingestion pipeline for enterprise customers, where uploaded documents may be several GBs in size. The system needed to support:
- OCR extraction
- Chunk-level processing
- Efficient storage for quick retrieval
- Thought process around chunking strategy
- Indexing and memory optimization
- Fault tolerance
- Horizontal scaling strategy
- 4
AA Round60 min
This round happened the same day as HLD The interviewer asked me to:
- Model/design a bank teller system
- Answer one behavioural question related to decision-making and ownership
What came up
A candidate-reported account, lightly edited. Interview processes change by team and date.