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How To Prepare For Microsoft Software Engineer Interview

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The As Appropriate Interview

How to prepare for your Microsoft interview: Technical Interviews

This is the last step before getting an offer.

On the AA interview, youll meet a senior executive from Microsoft.

The interviewer will first want to fill in any remaining questions that were left from your assessment. This means the focus may be on either behavioral or technical questions, according to your previous interviews. If you did well in previous interviews, the interviewer would also try and sell Microsoft to make sure that youll accept their offer if suggested.

Think About Previous Related Experiences

On behavioral interviews, Interviewers will want to understand your personal style: how well you can communicate, initiate, lead, learn from your mistakes and handle criticism.

This is especially important if youre a junior software engineer. In that case, interviewers would pay more attention to behavioral questions aimed at assessing your ability to adjust and grow within the company.

Its easier for the interviewer to get a feeling of who you are when you share an experience.

So, to show your skills,

think of projects/courses/past experiences that were meaningful to you. Try and describe:

  • What did you like about them?
  • What didnt you like?
  • What obstacles have you faced?
  • What have you learned?

So, Microsofts interview process for software engineers may seem endless at first. But now that weve broke it down into smaller and clearer stages, you can focus on preparing yourself and passing each upcoming stage, all the way until getting an offer.

Best of luck!

If you have any questions that were left unanswered, please let us know! We would like to help make Microsofts interview process as clear as possible for you.

Questions To Ask Your Interviewer In The Final Portion Of The Interview

The opportunity to ask the hiring manager your questions is a really important time to help you determine if this role is a good fit. Generally, you want to ask questions that will help you better understand the company and team structure. You want to make sure their engineering team structure and the style of your future manager align with what would work for you. A few specific questions to determine this would be:

  • What are the team’s key challenges today and over the next year? How does that fit into what the company is doing more widely? How does this role fit into those?

  • If you could imagine the perfect candidate for this role, how would you describe them?

  • How many direct reports do you have?

  • “How often do you meet 1-1 with your direct reports?

  • Who is on the rest of the team, and who would I work with most closely?

  • What is your approach to building a diverse and inclusive team?

Dive even deeper with questions like these, recommended by Rachel , Software Engineer at Twitter:

  • What does the roadmap look like in terms of projects/work that I would be directly involved with?

  • What has been the highest impact work you as a manager have been a part of so far at the company?

  • What has working for the company been like during the transition to remote work, and what are the plans post-Covid?

  • What does career growth look like within this role, and how does performance evaluation work at the company?

Also Check: Best System Design Interview Prep

What Is An Array

An array is a list-like data structure that contains a collection of values, each associated with a specific index, usually with a fixed overall size. For example, the image below shows an array that has space for up to nine elements, but contains only four. This array has the integers 1, 2, 3, and 4 as its values and these are at the zeroth, first, second, and third indices respectively.

Arrays are one of the most fundamental data structures in programming and computer science, and many more complex data structures are built using arrays. The array itself is not always as simple as it might seem, and it forms the basis for many tricky interview questions.

4.1.1 Types of arrays

Interviewers often ask questions about arrays, as if it cleanly refers to a single concept. In reality, there are different types of arrays, and different languages implement arrays in different ways, leading to some confusion and complexity. Mainstream programming languages offer a default built-in array implementation , and usually offer alternative implementations that the user can import from a standard library.

In many languages, including Java, default arrays are static and homogenous.Static means that the size of the array has to be declared upfront, when the array is created. Homogenous means that all of the elements in the array must be of the same type – e.g. an array of integers cannot contain string or float elements.

4.1.2 How arrays store data

Easy String Interview Questions

50 Popular Software Engineer Interview Questions

You might be tempted to try to read all of the possible questions and memorize the solutions, but this is not feasible. Interviewers will always try to find new questions, or ones that are not available online. Instead, you should use these questions to practice the fundamental concepts of strings.

As you consider each question, try to replicate the conditions youll encounter in your interview. Begin by writing your own solution without external resources in a fixed amount of time.

If you get stuck, go ahead and look at the solutions, but then try the next one alone again. Dont get stuck in a loop of reading as many solutions as possible! Weve analyzed dozens of questions and selected ones that are commonly asked and have clear and high quality answers.

Here are some of the easiest questions you might get asked in a coding interview. These questions are often asked during the phone screen stage, so you should be comfortable answering them without being able to write code or use a whiteboard.

1.1 Remove Vowels from a String

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Prepare For System Design Interviews

System design interviews are often asked in the engineering manager interview process, and require a different type of preparation than the people management interviews. These interviews often are in the format of “Design X” where you’ll be asked to discuss a technical implementation for a software product and consider trade-offs in building it.

For each system you design in the interview, consider how it affects the following aspects:

  • Scalability: a system is scalable if it is designed so that it can handle additional load and will still operate efficiently.
  • Reliability: a system is reliable if it can perform the function as expected, it can tolerate user mistakes, is good enough for the required use case, and it also prevents unauthorized access or abuse.
  • Availability: a system is available if it is able to perform its functionality . Note reliability and availability are related but not the same. Reliability implies availability but availability does not imply reliability.
  • Efficiency: a system is efficient if it is able to perform its functionality quickly. Latency, response time and bandwidth are all relevant metrics to measuring system efficiency.
  • Maintainability: a system is maintainable if it easy to make operate smoothly, simple for new engineers to understand, and easy to modify for unanticipated use cases.

Review some of the system design fundamentals in our system design interview prep course to be fully prepared to ace these questions.

Software Engineer Interview Questions About Experience And Background

In addition to the general questions, a hiring manager could ask, you will likely also need to answer questions about your background and experience in the software engineering industry. These questions will allow you to elaborate more on the skills you have gained through your education and work experience.

  • Describe your process for completing a project from start to finish.

  • What scaling issues have you had to deal with on past projects? How could it have been avoided and how did you solve it?

  • Tell me about a time that you had to collaborate with other people on your team or other teams to solve a complicated problem.

  • Describe the process your team currently implements for completing projects. What works well? What would you change and why?

  • Which project management tools do you feel are most useful in your role as a software engineer?

Related: 21 Job Interview Tips: How To Make a Great Impression

Read Also: Questions To Ask A Cfo

Top 100 Microsoft Software Engineer Interview Questions

  • Top 100 Microsoft Software Engineer Interview Questions
  • Software Engineering is an important area in the IT sector. That is to say, with managing the technical areas as well as performing complex system tasks, software engineer gets priority in the technology department of all types of organizations. However, with the growing level of technology, this role not only provides a high range salary but will help you to promote yourself to a more advanced level.

    But, fitting into this role requires a good level of technical and interpersonal skills. For this, you can use the various training programs by Microsoft that will help you in enhancing your skills enough to apply for this position. Moving on to the interview process, you can start preparing and revising using the top Software Engineer questions that we will talk about in this blog. So, lets begin!

    How Should I Prepare For An Onsite Software Development Engineer Interview At Microsoft

    How to prepare for Software Engineer Interviews | Interview preparation guide for Software Engineers

    Answer by Zeeshan Hamid, Entrepreneur. Single Father. Elected Office Holder. Nerd., on Quora,

    Zeeshan Hamid, Entrepreneur. Single Father. Elected Office Holder. Nerd.

    < < I worked for Microsoft for 10+ years. Likely interviewed hundreds of SDE candidates, a few as the hiring manager > >

    First of all, stop stressing. Honestly. I can’t recall how many really smart kids I interviewed where I had to spend good 15 minutes just calming their nerves down. Not every interviewer might be as patient.

    When on the other side of the table , I remind myself that it’s just a conversation, not a test. Go in, talk to another person who might become your colleague, and have a good time.

    Then, brush up on basic concepts, data structures and algorithms, but don’t stress over it. No one expects you to recall everything from memory. I really do expect you to know how to traverse a tree. I honestly do not expect you to know every tree traversal or balancing algorithm. Or even a few of them. As long as you know basic building blocks, you’ll be fine.

    Another mistake some interviewees make is that they try to memorize algorithms. There are so many out there, you can’t possibly memorize them all, nor will that help you in figuring out when to use what. The interviewer is trying to get an insight into your thought process, you don’t need to memorize anything for that.

    Lets talk about what the interviewer is looking for

    1) Raw intelligence

    2) Problem solving skills / Dealing with ambiguity

    4) Good fit

    Read Also: System Design Interview Prep

    Describe The Last Project You Worked On Including Any Obstacles And Your Contributions To Its Success

    A question relating to a specific project will help the interviewer better understand your process and how you handle adversity while working on a specific task.

    As you answer this question, use the STAR method to craft a detailed, informative answer. Start by describing the situation, which allows you to provide all the necessary details about the project on which you were working. Next, discuss the tasks you were assigned to outline your level of responsibility. When describing the action you took, include the steps you took to achieve a goal and finish with the result of the project.

    Example:A previous employer tasked me with creating an internal online learning and training program for employees. The purpose of the program was to make sure all employees received proper training on certain topics, including customer service, compliance with legal requirements and workplace ethics. I began by researching other similar training systems to figure out what worked and what didn’t. Next, I used Java to code a simple program, which I then used to upload training courses.

    After testing the simplified program, I added elements to make it more engaging to employees, such as games and interactive quizzes. This program was well-received by the employees of the organization, and their customer service success rates increased by 25% after all team members took the required course.

    Explain What Is Ddd Domain Driven Development

    Domain-driven design is an approach to software development for complex needs by connecting the implementation to an evolving model.

    In order to create good software, you have to know what that software is all about. You cannot create a banking software system unless you have a good understanding of what banking is all about, one must understand the domain of banking.

    Recommended Reading: How To Prepare System Design Interview

    Practice Coding Interview Questions

    To solve coding interview questions, you should be able to implement data structures and algorithms.

    This means A LOT of practice on coding questions and thinking problems.

    Ok, so where should you start?

    • It is best to start off with easy interview coding questions and work your way up to the more difficult ones.
    • Try to make your coding practice a regular routine, just like going to the gym. Choose a goal that is realistic, say two coding questions per day, and stick to it. This way youll get better and more confident at solving different coding questions, without the extra stress.
    • To make the most of your preparation time, practice questions that are based on previously asked Microsoft interview questions. This will ensure youre practicing the most relevant topics for your coding interview.

    Microsoft Software Engineer Interview Questions And Practice Problems

    How to prepare for technical software engineer interviews

    In this section, we have listed some of the frequently asked questions at Microsoft Software Engineer interviews.

    Microsoft Software Engineer Phone Interview Questions:

  • How would you describe a good day at work?
  • How do you plan on contributing to Microsoftâs mission and values?
  • Why do you want to work at Microsoft?
  • Tell me about a time you resolved a disagreement with your team.
  • What is the most challenging work situation you ever came across?
  • What would you say has been your biggest defeat?
  • Which of your traits do you personally like the best? Why?
  • If you could change anything you wanted, how would you improve any Microsoft product?
  • What is your least favorite Microsoft feature? Why?
  • Describe a time you had to take a calculated risk.
  • Describe your research project? What are the areas where you can improve?
  • What is your least favorite thing about an office?
  • How do you manage productivity when working from home?
  • Microsoft Software Engineer Coding Interview Questions:

  • Find the intersection of two sorted arrays.
  • Merge overlapping intervals in an array.
  • Given a string A. Return the string A after reversing the string word by word.
  • Given an integer A, convert it to a roman numeral and return a string corresponding to its roman numeral version.
  • Implement an iterator over a binary search tree. Your iterator will be initialized with the root node of a BST.
  • Find the middle element of a singly linked list in one pass.
  • Given two binary strings, return their sum .
  • Related read:

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    What Is A String

    A string is an ordered sequence, or string, of characters. It is usually considered a data type and is often included as part of language primitives. In most languages, strings are implemented using an array of bytes. The bytes are encoded using some character encoding. Earlier systems used ASCII encoding, with Unicode encoding used in later systems.

    4.1.1 Types of strings

    C++ provides a mutable string, meaning the string contents can be changed after creation.

    Python and Java provide an immutable string type. Immutable strings require a new string to be created if any changes are made. This has performance implications for string concatenation when joining a number of strings, running in quadratic time.

    Java provides a mutable StringBuilder class, which should be used for concatenating multiple strings. In Python, generally the `.join` method on strings should be used, which accepts an iterable of multiple strings. Using Java’s StringBuilder or Pythons `.join` provides a linear time solution for multiple string concatenations.

    Another class of strings are C-style strings, so named as they are used in the C language. These strings are simple arrays. A special terminating character is stored directly after the last character of the string. This terminating character marks the end of the string within the array, or buffer. C++ has support for C-style strings, but it is preferable to use C++ style strings in pure C++ code.

    4.1.2 How strings store data

    Tips To Negotiate Software Engineer Salary At Microsoft

    Negotiating oneâs salary can seem daunting at first, and many candidates are uncomfortable doing it in fear of spoiling their chance of getting selected. Here are a few pointers you can keep in mind while negotiating your package:

    • Do not share your current compensation with your interviewer.
    • You are not obligated to share the compensation you are expecting.
    • Build a good rapport with the hiring manager.
    • Do not insist on receiving offers in writing.
    • Check with your recruiter and ask for a relocation package if it applies to your case.
    • Remember to compare your offer with publicly available data.

    Salary negotiation is a must-have skill for any role. Read The Ultimate Guide to Salary Negotiation at FAANG for Software Engineersto hone your negotiation skills and get an offer that matches your value.

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    Expert Advice From Top Interviewers And Engineers

    You updated your resume, found some open software engineer job postings , and fired off your applications. And its landed you an interview !

    Now its time to prepare – and as a community full of thousands of successful software engineers, thats what were here to help you do.

    If youre feeling anxious or stressed about what to expect for software engineer interview questions, know youre not alone. Youve landed in the right place.

    We asked top women engineers at Apple, LinkedIn, Twitter, Square, Zillow, Splice, and lots of other companies to share the most common interview questions theyve heard in software engineering interviews, the best resources to prepare for interviews, and their top tips for acing the engineering interview in 2021.

    Many of these women have been on both sides of the software engineering interview process and know how exhausting and difficult it can be.

    So take a breath, have a sip of coffee or tea, and sink into your chair a little bit deeper to read this one. Were going to cover the most important things you need to know.

    Looking for a new job? Join other technical women in the Elpha Talent Pool and we’ll help you find your dream role.

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