The process started with a recruiter contacting me. They gave me assignments to complete, which I did.

I was in Redmond for interviews with 3 teams, with 5 interviews in total.

All rounds were technical.

They gave me problem statements, asked me to write pseudocode, and explain my approach to the problem.

In subsequent rounds, the difficulty increased, and the final round was something I had never encountered.

It involved writing an algorithm to detect the highest point in a contour map. I honestly did not think I would clear it.

However, I believe this is an appropriate interview. If the candidate is found to be suitable, they speak with a fairly senior person.

This person will go deeper and deeper to check a person's grit at problem-solving. I think they want to see how determined you are to reach solutions – a skill that is very important at Microsoft.

So, I gave my solution, and the person kept asking me for more and more information. At some point, he must have decided that I had reached my limit.

I got the offer.

Create an algorithm for sorting peculiar arrays.

If your fundamentals are strong (from K&R) and also from interview questions you will find on the net, and if you do at least a hundred of them, you should be able to hold your ground.