Interview Experience with Microsoft IDC Hyderabad

Attended the interview process of Microsoft IDC Hyderabad in Feb 2012 @Bangalore(as the panel was here).

Had 4 rounds

Round1:
Some qn related to BST, asked me to convert a BST to singly linked list in place. Asked various approaches and asked me to code it and write Test Cases. They are very particular about Test Cases! and Time Complexity.

After this they asked me to wait for one more round on same day(it was Saturday i guess)

Round 2:
This round started with a qn about hw the MS word will align while u type, so similarly he gave me a string/paragraph and a Buffer, and asked my approach to do the same. Asked me to write code as well as testcases. He was particular about Testcases(mainly failure cases) and Time Complexity of my algo. I was not able to give an optimised/very simple solution but still he was caring about how I was trying to improve the solution I gave I guess.

After this round felt very hungry and asked HR whether I have to stay back or I will go for my lunch(as went there early morning). She checked with the interviewer and told that I can leave and come back tomorrow for my next round(which I haven't expected)

Round3:
Again reached the venue early morning and I had a round with the Program Manager, he asked me how was my previous round and he said how did they go. I told him that I was not able to give optimized solutions there but tried to improve further. He said its fine and gave me some open ended question.

He asked me to design some Data Structure(s) to Manage Memory in a system, then I asked him whether he expect paging and all from me! He asked me to come down n think, then I said whether I should implement Memory Heap. He then said still more down, then I asked him whether to implement malloc and free, he said yes and started thinking. I gave few random solutions but while exlaining him itself I contradicted my self. So at last gave some solution which was convincing for both of us. He asked me to code for it, write Test cases and derive the Time Complexity.

HR asked me whether I can come to Bangalore for final phase of interviews, but I was saying her like if its on weekend it will be gr8, she said its not possible, then I said yes. Later they called me
after 2 days n said that panel is flying to Bangalore and I will be having my final rounds here itself.

In all 3 rounds above I feel that they will be checking your approach and how u r improving it, no one was expecting a optimized solution in one go!.

So the next Thursday I had my final interview.

Round4:
Interviewer was some senior guy, once I reached there HR took me to some conference room where my interviewer was waiting. He didn't ask me any qn like tell me about yourself etc.,
He directly posed a qn in front of me and asked me to solve it.

Given an array U have to return a product array, product array means the product of all the elements in the array except itself.

I/P:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
O/P:
720, 360,240,180,144,120

It looks simple!(Try to cover cases like if few elements of it are zeros etc.,).First I gave some solution(brute force, as I always do), he said he don't want me to code for it, but optimize it and code. So I came with some solution and he asked me to code for it. So after coding he asked me write Testcases and derive complexity. While writing TCs itself I found my code won't work for some cases, I told him that and he said he said that he is DISAPPOINTED with my coding, I said I can fix them and it took time for me to do that. In the mean while he said he want to play some games on his mobile saying that am very slow in my coding!. But I didn't take those words seriously, as I went there to give my best shot. Later he gave me some clue and came up with one more solution which he asked me to code for. After that he said whether I can improve it further, I said I can and gave him my approach, seems like he was convinced but not completely. He told me that he expected a optimized solution fro me in first go itself, but I told him that this the approach I was following till now. He asked me whether I have any questions, when I asked about my feedback he said like I should know it by this time(the way I have coded etc.,), so i thought I shouldn't ask any questions as I was getting one more question as a response!. So he asked me to leave after that.

I didn't had any hope for that after my final round. But few days back got a mail from MS HR asking to fill some Background verification forms. So donno whether my final interviewer was really expecting alot from me or it was some STRESS interview kind of thing!. So just waiting for their result eagerly...:)

Thought of sharing this as I got inspiration from this kind of posts before I went for the interviews....:)