Round 1: Online Assessment (OA) Format: 3 coding questions + 1 debugging task (90 minutes) Sample Question: You’re given an array of integers. Return the length of the longest subarray with sum equal to k. 👉 You write code, run test cases, and explain your approach. --- Round 2: Technical Interview (DSA + Problem Solving) Interviewer: Hi Siddhant, good to meet you! Let’s start with a coding problem. Please think out loud as you solve it. Question: "Given a binary tree, return the left view of the tree." Follow-ups: What’s the time and space complexity? Can you do it without recursion? How would this scale if the tree had millions of nodes? Second Question: "You are given an array of meeting times (start, end). Find the minimum number of meeting rooms required." Discuss heap vs sorting solutions. Optimize for large input sizes. --- Round 3: System Design (for SDE-II or full-time roles) Interviewer: Let’s design a scalable URL Shortener (like bit.ly). What APIs would you expose? How will you generate unique short links? How do you handle collisions? What happens if millions of users use it simultaneously? Which database would you use? Why? 👉 You’d sketch architecture: Load balancer → App servers → Cache (Redis) → DB (SQL/NoSQL). --- Round 4: Behavioral / Microsoft’s Values Microsoft focuses on Growth Mindset, Collaboration, Customer Obsession, and Impact. Questions: Tell me about a time you failed. How did you learn from it? Describe a project where you had to collaborate across teams. How do you balance writing clean code vs shipping fast? Why Microsoft? 👉 Best to show humility, curiosity, and learning attitude. --- Round 5: Hiring Manager / Final Fit Discussion about role expectations, your interests, and career growth. Might include one medium coding problem. Heavy focus on culture fit + long-term vision.