I attended a conference and noted down the presenter's email ID, as I was really impressed with the work they were doing. When looking for full-time opportunities, I contacted the person regarding any openings in their team. Fortunately, I heard back from them and had a phone screen scheduled within one week.

The phone screen was easy and mainly focused on the projects I had written on my resume and some algorithmic problems related to those projects.

Within another week, I heard back from them that I had passed the first round and needed to come to Seattle for a face-to-face interview. They were very helpful in scheduling the interview according to my convenience. Microsoft takes care of its employees and potential employees alike, as was the case for me. The scheduling was wonderful and systematic. I landed in Seattle.

The whole day was set aside for interviews; I had five in total, including the famous fifth interview, which is a positive sign as mentioned by many. The first interview involved a slight variation on level order traversal, which I was able to code with some help from the recruiter, who was very nice. You will have to write the code on a whiteboard, so I would suggest practicing "actual" coding, preferably on an IDE that shows only syntactical errors and runs the program. Eclipse is sometimes too helpful, allowing us to forget minor mistakes.

The second round was a real-life project problem related to quick IP lookup, for which I have a default solution: Tries. I discussed the pros and cons of using Tries, and the interviewer was satisfied. I stumbled a little while implementing it but eventually was able to do so, with the interviewer's help.

Oh, and one more thing: each interview is approximately 45 to 60 minutes long, and the lunch discussion is also part of the recruiting process. So, don't dismiss it thinking it's not part of the process.

The third interview included the lunch discussion, as I mentioned. I wasn't aware of it initially, but since the interviewer only discussed my resume projects, I was happy to talk about them. I was really wondering why lunch felt like so much work. I later realized this when the interviewer said, "Let's go back to the office and continue the discussion." This was the toughest round, as the interviewer went into very specific details about my projects. So, a tip: remember some tool names, just to drop them in conversation.

The fourth round was a short one, as the third one lasted an hour and a half. This one was comparatively lighter and mainly focused on design problems.

Then came the nerve-wracking wait, as they told me to wait while they discussed my performance and decided on the last interview with the second-line manager. Thankfully, the manager came soon and asked me to wait for the second-line manager. That discussion was very informal, as he was selling Microsoft to me and explaining why I should come and work there. That's always a happy sign!

I then returned to my awesome hotel, as I had my flight back the same evening.

Almost the next day, the HR contacted me, and I missed her call. I truly thought I hadn't gotten through, but thankfully, HR called me back the next day and told me I had passed!

The only advice I can give you is "CODE"! There is no way around it. If you want to work as an SDE, you need to know Algorithms and Data Structures. The language is not an issue, but you must know how to implement them and at least be able to discuss why to use or not use a particular data structure.

A very detailed discussion on the most interesting project in your career.