Microsoft SDE-2 — one online round plus four rounds in a single day

Process overview

Five rounds in total — one standalone online coding round, then four back-to-back rounds condensed into a single day.

Online coding round

DSA-heavy, on a platform similar to HackerRank. Two problems between medium and hard. To clear it you need to fully solve at least one including all hidden test cases; partial credit across both isn't enough.

The "big day"

The remaining four rounds all landed on one day (typically a Friday or Saturday slot). Each round is sequential — you must clear one before the next, with no skipping ahead and no second chance if you stumble early.

Round-by-round

Round 1 — DSA

Pure DSA, leaning hard toward the difficult end: a mix of dynamic programming and graphs. No warm-up at all.

Round 2 — LLD / DSA

This round can go either way depending on the interviewer. Mine was an LLD discussion: clarify requirements first, walk through the design, then handle cross-questioning — especially on why I'd chosen C++ and how language-specific decisions played into the design.

Round 3 — DSA

A genuinely unusual problem built around trees and queues. Not something I recognised from practice platforms, so it was less about recalling a pattern and more about reasoning through something unfamiliar under time pressure.

Round 4 — System design + resume deep dive

With a partner-level interviewer, combining a deep dive into my work experience with a system design problem. Less a puzzle, more a conversation about how I think and what I've built.

Verdict

Cleared all five rounds. Selected.