I applied to Microsoft on their careers page. Got a call after 2 months from the date of applying. The interview process took 3 weeks time. I interviewed at Bellevue, WA in June 2017. After a brief chat with the recruiter, she setup a technical phone interview. The question was trivial, but with a twist, making it interesting. The interviewer was helpful and guided me towards a solution. I managed to get a suitable solution which cracked the problem. After clearing the telephonic round, I was called onsite. Microsoft is huge in Seattle and you may get awestruck by their infrastructure in the area(It was my first time in Seattle as well!). I was scheduled to meet 4 team members. From the interview panel, two people ask core technical whiteboard coding questions while the other two ask design questions. My first interview was with a Senior Software Engineer. He asked me a coding question that is fairly popular on Leetcode/CTCI etc. I managed to reach the solution. The interviewer was impressed. My next interview was with a Senior Engineering Manager. He asked me a design/coding problem which I had seen for the first time. I managed to reach a respectable solution. Next was the interview with a Software Engineer 2 who was also my lunch buddy. He asked me a design question, I managed to design a Java solution for this. He was happy with it. Lastly, I was called for the final round. This was the toughest interview of all. I came up with an iterative solution for the problem. It worked well, but then the interviewer asked to come up with a recursive solution with optimized time complexity. I managed to write the recursive solution after taking some time and scratching my head around the problem. But, it is worth mentioning, all the interviewers try to take you towards a solution, they help and guide you. They want the solution to be with good time and space complexities and also ask you to give some test cases for your solution.

1. Recruiter screen: recruiter was friendly but had their camera off. They asked me about my recent work experience, my strongest programming language, and salary expectations 2. Technical Screen: live HackerRank coding challenge with a team member of the team hiring for the role, over Microsoft Teams. The interviewer had their camera off but was easy to talk to. The coding challenge was a LeetCode-style challenge that required the backtracking algorithm. Interviewer spent extra time aftwards to take questions from me and share information about the team and employer. 3. 3x "Full Loop Interview Technical". The interviewers did not show up to these interviews. I emailed the recruiter who told me that interviewing for the role had been cancelled. My overall impression of Microsoft based on their hiring practises is the company is dysfunctional, employees are disengaged, their hiring practises are disconnected from the actual job, and they don't care about candidate experience.