This time, we're going to share what one of our students just experienced Microsoft SDE Virtual Onsite 1st round. It ended up going well, with positive feedback from the interviewer and the trainee getting the next round. Microsoft's interviews are not particularly tricky in general, but when you are actually sitting in front of the computer, nervousness, stuttering, and vague answers will all affect your performance. We provided on-line voice assistance throughout the interview, and it was because of this assistance that the trainee was able to play out what he had prepared in a stable manner.
Background of trainees
This student is a CS major and has a good foundation for brushing up on questions. He has done more than 200 questions on LeetCode, and has done the common array, hash, and double-pointer questions. However, his previous internship experience was mainly in small and medium-sized companies, and his project experience was not particularly systematized, so he was quite rusty in answering BQs, and would often give scattered answers.
He was well aware of the problem himself:
Algorithmic questions have ideas, but it's easy to get nervous and mess up the writing.;
Behavioral questions are answered in too general a manner, no focused cases;
Getting stuck on follow-ups, doesn't know where to expand.
So before this Microsoft VO, he approached us at programhelp, hoping that someone could help him steady himself at the critical moment and not waste the opportunity because of his nervousness.
Microsoft SDE VO Interview Process Record
Behavioral problems (BQ)
The interviewer came up with three questions:
- How did you quickly master a new technology and apply it to a project?
The trainee wanted to speak in general at first, but I tapped on my voice: "Talk about demo validation + project implementation". He immediately adjusted and shared a case study in which he built a small demo with the new framework and gradually replaced it with an online project, which was specific and hierarchical. - Describe an experience dealing with fuzzy requirements
What the interviewer wants to hear is "how do you deal with uncertainty". The participant's beginning was a bit empty, so I reminded him: "emphasize communication, identify key indicators, and iterate to advance". He immediately added how to go back and forth with the PM to align, first landing MVP, and then gradually expanding, the answer was instantly full. - How do you organize your time when multiple projects have conflicting priorities?
We've trained the "impact × urgency" framework before, and I just dropped a few keywords into the voice, and he expanded on them, which seemed both logical and practical.
The interviewer listened attentively, nodded from time to time, and pressed for a few details, and the atmosphere was sort of relaxed.
Coding section: Two Sum
The topic is classic Two Sum:
Given an array of integers, find two numbers whose sum equals the target value and return the index.
The trainee starts off by saying the violent solution O(n2)O(n^2)O(n2), sort of showing the basic idea. The interviewer nodded his head in understanding.
At this point I voice a reminder, "Hash tables are better, watch out for boundary cases."
He immediately switched to the O(n) hash table writing method, the code was written cleanly, and he also measured a few test cases by himself, and all of them passed.
The interviewer continued to ask follow-up:
- How to distribute the processing if the array is particularly large?
I prompted him to mention map-reduce + sharded storage, the trainee then follows along in the direction of big data processing with clear logic. - How to optimize the space complexity if you want to find all possible pairs of numbers?
I gently prompted, "sort + double pointer" and he went along with the explanation. The answer was both thoughtful and trade-off ready.
This part of the performance was a plus, and the interviewer was clearly more than satisfied, and followed up with boundary cases, such as repeating numbers and negative number cases, which the trainee answered.
Interview Experience and Takeaways
Throughout the whole interview, the trainee was obviously much more composed than when he was working alone. the BQ part was not vague, the coding was written quickly and accurately, and the follow-up wasn't dumbfounded. The interviewer's final feedback was "Good job, I like how you handled the edge cases."
After the trainees came out, they told me that without the voice assistance, the first two questions of the BQ would have been rather dry, and the two questions of the follow-up would have been stuck. Now it is both natural and complete, and the whole experience is very smooth.
The Complete Boost from Brush to Offer
In fact, many students encounter similar problems when preparing for interviews: OA gets stuck in the last few hidden cases, VO answers are too general, and they get confused when they encounter follow-ups. Our team has been providing a full set of interview assistance services for a long time: from OA ghostwriting (100%, no charge if you don't pass the test) to interview preparation for big companies. VO real-time voice assistscan help you make steady progress step by step, from interviews, resume packaging, and simulation training. In particular, our North American CS experts provide real-life assistance throughout the entire process, far exceeding the effectiveness of relying solely on AI.
If you are targeting FAANG or North American big factories, we can also provide full escort of offer: from written test to interview, and then all the way to the negotiation session support, until you get a satisfactory offer. Whether it's programming writing, algorithm tutoring, Quant interviews, or special scenarios for international students, you can find the right solution. If you want to take less detours and get on the shore steadily, come to us for a chat.
