I applied to Microsoft through their careers page and received a call two months after applying. The interview process spanned three weeks. I interviewed in Bellevue, Washington, in June 2017.

After a brief chat with the recruiter, she scheduled a technical phone interview. The question was trivial but had a twist, making it interesting. The interviewer was helpful and guided me toward a solution. I successfully found a suitable solution that solved the problem.

After clearing the telephonic round, I was invited for an onsite interview. Microsoft's presence in Seattle is vast, and you might be awestruck by their infrastructure in the area (it was also my first time in Seattle!). I was scheduled to meet four team members. Two interviewers asked core technical whiteboard coding questions, while the other two focused on design questions.

My first interview was with a Senior Software Engineer. He presented a coding question commonly found on LeetCode/CTCI, and I managed to reach the solution. The interviewer seemed impressed. My next interview was with a Senior Engineering Manager. He posed a design/coding problem I had not encountered before, but I successfully developed a respectable solution.

Next, I interviewed with a Software Engineer 2, who was also my lunch buddy. He asked a design question for which I designed a Java solution. He appeared pleased with it.

Lastly, I had the final round, which was the toughest interview. I initially developed an iterative solution that worked well. However, the interviewer then asked for a recursive solution with optimized time complexity. After some thought and effort, I managed to write the recursive solution. It's worth noting that all interviewers strive to guide you toward a solution, offering help and suggestions. They are interested in solutions with good time and space complexities and will ask you to provide test cases for your solution.

NDA.