Foundry Interview Experience - Vancouver, British Columbia
October 1, 2014
Neutral ExperienceGot Offer
Process
The interview process consisted of one phone screen and three onsite rounds.
The questions were surprisingly simple. After the phone screen, I was contacted to fly to the Vancouver office.
Each onsite round featured basic questions, such as finding duplicates in an array.
During one interview, an interviewer was observed playing with their phone, which was quite shocking. Afterwards, I realized I had made a significant mistake on a question, but the interviewer did not catch it at the time.
I received an offer the next day, despite the questionable quality of some interviewers.
Questions
Given an array of integers, find the duplicates. Got asked this question twice.
Find the longest subarray in a string that contains no duplicates.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 3 interview experiences for the Microsoft Foundry role in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Success Rate
67%
Pass Rate
Microsoft's interview process for their Foundry roles in Vancouver, British Columbia is incredibly easy as the vast majority of engineers get an offer after going through it.
Experience Rating
Positive33%
Neutral33%
Negative33%
Candidates reported having mixed feelings for Microsoft's Foundry interview process in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Microsoft Work Experiences
3.0
Could have been better
Foundry • Former Employee
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
October 12, 2015
Pros: Big company name to put on your resume, free fruits, chance to come back for another internship at Microsoft. Fun experience coding with other interns.
Cons: Everything else. The engineering practices at The Foundry Program are ancient.
The practical training given to interns is bare minimal, sometimes non-existent.
The manager for foundry is unprofessional at times, as he seems to have family/kid issues from time to time, and he often carries that emotion to work. When that happens, he takes no charge at work at all. Base salary is quite low too.
1.0
Foundry Intern Program - An Innovative Intern Sweatshop
Foundry • Former Employee
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
September 26, 2015
Pros: 1. Excellent learning experience. You can't find a better place to learn how to build something from scratch.
2. Interns hired are really hard working and nice.
Cons: Can't believe I'm writing this review for Microsoft.
1. It's a game of luck:
The Foundry program involves grouping interns of 5 on a new project, sponsored by one of the Microsoft teams. The interns will be pitched with an idea and are responsible for designing and implementing a product. If you're lucky with a good sponsor, your project is 80% done because they will help you out. Chances are some sponsors don't care enough.
2. Second-class interns:
A bit less than 4k a month, that's the lowest job offer I've ever seen. Pretty horrendous, considering how hard the management pushed interns to work. Hardly any intern events, except they gave us some free pizza 3 times in the summer, while we watched Redmond interns go to free concerts and get Surface Pro 3s.
3. Monopoly management:
Management consists of ONE PM, some mentors, and sponsors. As I mentioned, the sponsors sometimes don't matter as much, so the PM and sponsors have almost all the say in whether the project can ship. Yet the problem is, they usually don't take part in the decision-making process. If things go wrong, interns are the ones left to blame, because they will tell you, "you made the decision yourself." Many interns work till 11 pm to catch deadlines. That's as bad as it can be, considering most full-timers are gone at 6. The lack of guidance from the management certainly hasn't helped.
2.0
It's different here at Foundry
Foundry • Former Employee
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
September 25, 2015
Pros: The office is good. It provides a surface for development, which you have to return later. It's cool to be able to build something from scratch as an intern.
Cons: Overall a bad intern experience. Meetings every day, ~6-7 hours of meetings a week, and they tell you it's normal. For intern devs, that's not normal. Plus, they pay really, really badly. Wouldn't come back again.
- 3.0Could have been betterFoundry • Former EmployeeVancouver, British Columbia, CanadaOctober 12, 2015Pros: Big company name to put on your resume, free fruits, chance to come back for another internship at Microsoft. Fun experience coding with other interns.Cons: Everything else. The engineering practices at The Foundry Program are ancient. The practical training given to interns is bare minimal, sometimes non-existent. The manager for foundry is unprofessional at times, as he seems to have family/kid issues from time to time, and he often carries that emotion to work. When that happens, he takes no charge at work at all. Base salary is quite low too.
- 1.0Foundry Intern Program - An Innovative Intern SweatshopFoundry • Former EmployeeVancouver, British Columbia, CanadaSeptember 26, 2015Pros: 1. Excellent learning experience. You can't find a better place to learn how to build something from scratch. 2. Interns hired are really hard working and nice.Cons: Can't believe I'm writing this review for Microsoft. 1. It's a game of luck: The Foundry program involves grouping interns of 5 on a new project, sponsored by one of the Microsoft teams. The interns will be pitched with an idea and are responsible for designing and implementing a product. If you're lucky with a good sponsor, your project is 80% done because they will help you out. Chances are some sponsors don't care enough. 2. Second-class interns: A bit less than 4k a month, that's the lowest job offer I've ever seen. Pretty horrendous, considering how hard the management pushed interns to work. Hardly any intern events, except they gave us some free pizza 3 times in the summer, while we watched Redmond interns go to free concerts and get Surface Pro 3s. 3. Monopoly management: Management consists of ONE PM, some mentors, and sponsors. As I mentioned, the sponsors sometimes don't matter as much, so the PM and sponsors have almost all the say in whether the project can ship. Yet the problem is, they usually don't take part in the decision-making process. If things go wrong, interns are the ones left to blame, because they will tell you, "you made the decision yourself." Many interns work till 11 pm to catch deadlines. That's as bad as it can be, considering most full-timers are gone at 6. The lack of guidance from the management certainly hasn't helped.
- 2.0It's different here at FoundryFoundry • Former EmployeeVancouver, British Columbia, CanadaSeptember 25, 2015Pros: The office is good. It provides a surface for development, which you have to return later. It's cool to be able to build something from scratch as an intern.Cons: Overall a bad intern experience. Meetings every day, ~6-7 hours of meetings a week, and they tell you it's normal. For intern devs, that's not normal. Plus, they pay really, really badly. Wouldn't come back again.
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