Envié una solicitud electrónica. El proceso duró 4 semanas. Acudí a una entrevista en Microsoft en feb 2025
Entrevista
The process was fairly standard: 1 technical screen followed by a 4 interview loop. Unfortunately, there were several problems in the process that impacted my ability to succeed.
The preparation guidance provided was incorrect. The recruiter told me to study Leetcode for the first screening. In that interview, no coding questions were asked, only behavioral questions. The interviewer said I should work on my behavioral question responses in the next round. Of course having focused my time on Leetcode questions, I hadn't polished my answers for behavioral questions.
Again, for the next 4 interviews, I was told to focus on Leetcode. And again, two of the 4 interviews had no coding. Not only did they have no coding, the first interview in the 4 interview loop was with the same person who interviewed me for the tech screen and both were fully behavioral. I wonder if there was some mix-up there. During the interviews with coding, only 15 minutes was given to solve the coding questions (these normally have at least 30 min). Additionally, one of the interviews was an interrogation to verify what's on my resume. That wasn't so bad because if it's on my resume, I can answer questions about it but I wasn't prepared for a deep dive on every aspect of REST. There was also a system design - I expected this even though the recruiter didn't actually tell me there would be a system design interview.
The final thing that made this a negative experience was the pressure from the hiring team. I was told I had to schedule my final round interviews within 2 weeks or the position would close. For further context, I had applied to this position 2 months prior and had no idea if they would ever get back to me or when. I had to move a non-trivial personal obligation in order to make these interviews work. And then one of the interviewers didn't show up. I was told the recruitment team accidentally put the wrong interviewer on the loop. I guess they didn't check for an acceptance. I couldn't move my personal obligation so I told them it would have to be pushed out 2 weeks. Apparently, that was fine. So much for the position closing within those first 2 weeks.
I'm rating the overall difficulty average - if I knew what I should have prepared for, the interviews were reasonable difficulty.
Envié una solicitud electrónica. Acudí a una entrevista en Microsoft (Praga) en may 2026
Entrevista
I applied for Principal Software Engineer for GitHub Copilot. A recruiter reached out to me by email to schedule the first screening round asap. I was surprised, because it isn't how it worked few years back - there was an introductory screening call with recruiter first. In a few days the recruiter called me from abroad on my mobile phone to discuss the interview process and expectations. Compared to few years back, information shared regarding rounds wasn't as detailed, but basic information was provided. Few years back I received information on what soft skills they are looking for in each round and that could be used to prepare examples for discussion. It was not the case this time.
We did the screening round, the interviewer was based in US, it went well, a discusssion mainly about past experience.
A week later, recruiter phoned me to regrettably inform me that they have decided not to move forward and provided feedback why. They reportedly saw a gap in incident handling, which looks like proxy reason to me/misunderstanding as I have really solid experience in making sure we have a quick resolution, root cause analysis and prevention.
The job opening was generic, mentioned many programing languages but it turned out they use almost exclusively Go on the project. I did specifically open this question on both screening calls to judge tech fit. This, together with the solution running in Azure, where I lack experience was probably the main reason for rejection.
I would have given this a positive rating if the process was as organized as few years back.
It may take a few years until I apply again as the site serves as a junkyard for projects they don't want to do in US and I'm not interested in that.
Preguntas de entrevista [1]
Pregunta 1
- questions about past experience
- technical problems solved
- what do you think differentiates principal engineers from senior engineers
- incident handling
Envié una solicitud electrónica. Acudí a una entrevista en Microsoft (Hyderabad) en abr 2026
Entrevista
Absolute pathetic experience with Microsoft Hyderabad. Unable to get a hold of a human or any kind of response from the recruiter.
I applied online on Microsoft's careers page. A few weeks later I receive an email from a recruiter asking to pick a slot for a technical screen. Once I confirmed a slot I emailed the recruiter asking for the agenda for the interview. Didn't get any response back. Three days before the interview I emailed the recruiter asking if we can push it by a few days because of personal reasons and if not I can continue with the original time. The recruiter once again didn't reply to my email. An hour before the call she canceled the interview and never sent me an reschedule link or any kind of correspondence.
I'm appalled at the lack of professionalism at Microsoft Hyderabad.
HR round
Screening - Python
Panel round - 5 interviews
I passed screening and went for loop rounds. All rounds were pretty good. Got interviewed by Principal level engineers/Managers. Question were around data modeling, system design and coding was on python with hiring manager. Did not pass the interview. Overall was good, HR was very hyelpful and gave feedback as to where I could have done better. Everything was fast and got completed within 2 weeks. The result was released in action center and then HR emailed me back after 4-5 days
Preguntas de entrevista [1]
Pregunta 1
1. whats star schema and why its called that
2. lot of questions around dimensions and fact tables
3. one made up scenario where I was asked to use AI