I applied through a recruiter. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Tel Aviv-Yafo) in May 2020
Interview
Contacted by a recruiter on LinkedIn. The first screening test was on codility, two technical interviews (with tech lead and manager respectively) to be followed by an AA interview, the manager of the group I interviewed for. All three interviewers shown great interest in my previous work, in my background, and in me in general.
Unlike processes in other FAANGM companies, the atmosphere was laid back and supportive.
The interviewers (all three of them) were modest, and I always felt they're talking to me in a great amount of respect. Each interview ended with a *fair* amount of time pitching me in to the team.
I Felt very welcomed and respected throughout the process.
When that fell on the right side, an HR representative contacted me to start dealing with the details of the offer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
System design question.
The topic covered were:
1. Design patterns.
2. Testing.
3. Redundancy and distribution.
Started with a recruiter phone call and a 30 minute phone call with the hiring manager to negotiate a remote role since the job was based in Seattle and the manager agreed. Following up with five rounds of virtual on site. Four of them are coding/design. One of them is behavioral mostly leetcode medium level questions which I finished and I was able to do all the follow up and answer the design and time complexity questions correctly after the interview got ghosted for a whole month and got an automatic rejection email.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Leet code medium level questions. DFS, BFS, sliding windows and greedy algorithm. Follow up, asking some design questions and the time complexity of the code.
Phone interview with hiring manager for 45 minutes primarily a tech interview. Focused on questions directly related to tech stack. Come prepared knowing design questions and how those conversations go.