I was initially contacted by a third-party recruiter working for Microsoft about a position on the Xbox team. Not expecting much, I went along with the process and spoke with the recruiter, and then another one. Finally, I was set up with a phone screen by the hiring manager, which was pretty straightforward, with a few questions about basic algorithms, etc. After which, I was asked to fly in to Redmond at Microsoft's expense, which seemed like a sin to turn down.

I flew up to Seattle from California the day before and was put up in a pretty nice 4-star place in Redmond. Microsoft goes all out in taking care of its candidates; it's very professional indeed.

The whole next day was spent on the Microsoft campus with various one-on-one meetings, starting with a new recruiter. Everyone else was either an engineer or a manager. Each interview seemed to focus on a different type of questioning, including algorithms, coding, whiteboarding, transactions, process, and deployment, etc. It was a very well-rounded interview process and did not focus on just one kind of questioning like other companies.

I finished the day feeling pretty confident about my performance and, to my surprise, got a call from the recruiter the very same night with a verbal offer!

Describe Semaphores and Deadlocks.

How would you design the Matchmaking service used by Xbox Live?