Microsoft SDE-2 via LinkedIn referral — offer one day after the final round

## Background
I applied to Microsoft through a **LinkedIn referral**, with 3.5 years of experience (previously at JP Morgan).

## Online assessment
On HackerRank: two problems centred on **graphs**, medium-to-hard.

## Round-by-round

### Round 1 — DSA
About an hour on **tree** and **dynamic programming** problems — both common themes in Microsoft's process.

### Round 2 — DSA (originally slated as LLD)
I'd prepared for low-level design, but the interviewer pivoted to two more DSA problems: one on **linked lists**, one math-based. Also close to an hour.

### Round 3 — High-level design
Design a **notification service** from the ground up: functional requirements, non-functional requirements and back-of-the-envelope capacity calculations.

A consistent thread across all three rounds: interviewers kept circling back to my previous project work — every round involved a deep dive into what I'd actually built and owned.

## Verdict
An offer one day after the final round. **Selected.**