Microsoft

I applied for the Microsoft Software Engineering Intern position through the off-campus route and was first shortlisted for the online assessment. The OA consisted of two coding problems, both around the medium-to-hard level. I managed to get both solutions accepted, but the questions still required careful handling of edge cases and choosing an efficient approach within the time limit. From the beginning, I felt that the assessment was testing general problem-solving ability rather than just recognition of a particular LeetCode pattern. A reported off-campus candidate described a very similar OA with two medium-to-hard DSA questions and successful completion of all test cases. The first technical interview was heavily focused on DSA. I was asked to start with a basic linked-list problem involving reversing a linked list. Instead of immediately coding, I explained both the iterative and recursive approaches and compared their time and space requirements. The discussion then moved to a graph problem similar to Open the Lock, where I had to explain how BFS could be used and how I would deal with already visited states. We also discussed tree traversal techniques and a more involved problem combining backtracking and BFS. The interviewer paid attention to how I arrived at the solution and how I handled hints rather than simply checking whether the final code compiled. These questions and round structure are also documented in a recent off-campus Microsoft interview report. For the next round, the discussion was more mixed. I was asked about one of my projects and had to explain what I had personally implemented, followed by another DSA problem. I was able to derive the solution, but I struggled to make the approach as optimized as the interviewer expected. Another reported candidate described a similar experience where the second interview was tougher and ultimately became the reason they believed they were rejected. There were also questions around my reasoning and communication throughout the process. I had to explain complexity, dry-run examples, consider edge cases, and respond when the interviewer changed part of the problem. This was different from simply solving problems independently because I had to continuously communicate my thought process. I ultimately received a rejection after the interview rounds. Even though I had cleared the OA and managed several of the technical questions, I felt that consistency across the interviews was important. The experience taught me that for Microsoft I needed to be comfortable not only with standard DSA patterns such as linked lists, trees and graphs, but also with explaining an approach clearly, optimizing it when challenged, and discussing my projects in enough technical depth. Other reported Microsoft internship processes also include Core CS topics such as OS, OOP and DBMS alongside DSA, so I would not prepare for the interview using coding questions alone.