Microsoft interview questions

Showing 151–180 of 252 results

• Group GPUs by node and partition by linksHard

  This problem tests your ability to model a network as a graph and perform partitioning to optimize internal connectivity constraints.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Handle Cross-Team Dependencies and Scope ConflictsMedium

  This question evaluates competency in cross-team collaboration, stakeholder management, conflict resolution, prioritization, and influencing without formal authority in a Machine Learning Engineer context.

  MicrosoftMachine Learning EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite
• Handling a Deadline You Will Miss, and Why Adding Engineers Late BackfiresEasy

  A behavioral question about realizing that a task you own will miss its deadline and what you do next, followed by a probe on why adding more people close to delivery tends to backfire. It tests early escalation, framing options and trade-offs, ownership, and an understanding of ramp-up and coordination costs.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite
• How would you build and evaluate a classifier?Medium

  This problem tests your ability to design a binary classification pipeline from metric selection to production monitoring, with a focus on aligning technical decisions with business objectives.

  MicrosoftData ScientistMachine LearningTechnical Screen
• How would you estimate impact without A/B?Medium

  This question tests your ability to design quasi-experimental methods to infer causal impact when randomization is not possible due to technical or business constraints.

  MicrosoftData ScientistAnalytics & ExperimentationTechnical Screen
• Identify the Extra Directed EdgeMedium

  This question evaluates understanding of graph theory concepts—directed trees, parent-child constraints, and cycle detection—and measures competency in reasoning about how a single extra directed edge can violate rooted-tree properties.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement Calendar, Tokenizer, and Meeting OptimizerMedium

  This problem tests your ability to parse structured meeting request strings into interval objects and then identify the largest subset of non-overlapping meetings that can be scheduled within a fixed workday.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement K-Means and Detect Divisible SubarraysMedium

  This question evaluates a candidate's ability to implement an iterative clustering algorithm (K-means) and to reason about subarray sums modulo k, testing competencies in numerical computation, centroid management, edge-case handling, and efficient algorithm design.

  MicrosoftMachine Learning EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement Matrix Move and LoggerMedium

  This problem tests in-place array manipulation for submatrix coordinate transformations and the implementation of a thread-safe, time-windowed rate limiter using a sliding window approach.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement Memory Allocation and In-Memory RecordsMedium

  This problem tests your ability to manage a block of contiguous memory via a free-list and maintain a hierarchical data structure for user records.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement SFT Sample PackingMedium

  This problem tests your ability to efficiently pack variable-length sequences into fixed-length blocks for training, ensuring padding tokens do not influence the loss calculation.

  MicrosoftMachine Learning EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsHR Screen
• Implement SQL Table and DNA OrderingMedium

  This question evaluates a candidate's skills in robust input parsing, in-memory data modeling, API design, and sequence reconstruction from linked fragments, covering string handling, edge-case handling for CSV, and graph-like ordering of sequence fragments.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement a Bounded Per-Key Ordered Task ExecutorMedium

  Design and implement a thread-safe, bounded task executor that guarantees sequential execution per key while enforcing a global concurrency limit across all keys.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsTechnical Screen
• Implement a Priority Queue from Scratch with Custom Ordering and Stable TiesMedium

  Data structures question that asks you to build a priority queue from scratch with insert, peek, remove-top and size operations, a caller-supplied ordering and stable ties. It tests the choice of underlying structure, invariant-preserving insertion and removal, complexity analysis and edge-case handling.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOther
• Implement a Snapshot Set IteratorMedium

  This problem tests your ability to design a data structure that maintains point-in-time consistency for an iterator despite subsequent modifications to the underlying collection.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Implement a Thread-Safe Per-Key Ordered ExecutorMedium

  Implement per-key FIFO task execution with thread-safe submission, bounded global concurrency, ready-key scheduling, and exception-safe slot release.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Implement a rate limiter at scaleMedium

  This problem tests your ability to implement an efficient, thread-safe rate limiter using a sliding window algorithm to ensure a request quota is enforced across a distributed environment.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement a sliding-window rate limiter allow()Hard

  This problem tests your ability to implement a thread-safe rate limiter using a sliding window algorithm to ensure a service stays within specified traffic constraints.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement a type-based mutex for tasksMedium

  This problem tests knowledge of synchronization primitives, dictionary-based locking mechanisms, and the ability to manage resource contention based on dynamic categorization.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Implement array and tree traversal tasksHard

  This problem tests your ability to optimize an array-based trading algorithm using a greedy approach and your mastery of level-order tree traversal to extract a specific view of a binary tree.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Implement cache and merge intervalsMedium

  This question tests the ability to implement a fixed-capacity Least Recently Used (LRU) cache using hash maps and doubly-linked lists, followed by a classic interval processing algorithm to merge overlapping segments.

  MicrosoftMachine Learning EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement concurrent structures and debug queue codeHard

  This question evaluates data-structure implementation and concurrent programming competencies by testing construction of an LRU cache, a custom hash map, a quadtree spatial index, and debugging of a producer-consumer queue.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Implement four data-structure/string geometry tasksMedium

  This problem tests foundational skills in string arithmetic, parsing, coordinate geometry, and segment tree-based range queries.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement greedy decoding and beam searchMedium

  This question evaluates understanding of autoregressive decoding strategies—greedy decoding and beam search—including cumulative log-probability scoring, beam maintenance, EOS handling, and sequence expansion logic; it is categorized under Coding & Algorithms for Software Engineer roles.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Implement idempotent request handling with idempotency keysHard

  This problem tests your ability to design a thread-safe idempotency layer that ensures an API endpoint processes identical requests exactly once, even in the presence of concurrent execution.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement lower_bound on unknown-size sorted arrayHard

  This question evaluates ability to design efficient search algorithms for unknown-length non-decreasing arrays accessed via a limited get(i) API, emphasizing correctness proof and tight query/time complexity bounds.

  MicrosoftData ScientistCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement rotated array binary search with duplicatesMedium

  This question evaluates algorithm design and analysis skills, focusing on binary-search variants, handling duplicates in rotated non-decreasing arrays, rotation-index reasoning, and rigorous edge-case analysis; domain: Coding & Algorithms, specifically search algorithms and array manipulation.

  MicrosoftData ScientistCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Implement the Linux cp Command, Then Explain Its OS and C++ InternalsMedium

  A low-level engineering exercise to implement the Linux cp command in C++ and then explain what happens beneath it. It tests system calls, short writes and error handling, the page cache and kernel-assisted copying, and RAII-based management of file descriptors.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Implement tree traversals, BFS, and subsets generationMedium

  This question evaluates proficiency with fundamental data structures and algorithms—binary tree traversals (preorder, inorder, postorder), breadth-first search on unweighted graphs, and power-set/subset generation—emphasizing implementation choices between recursive and iterative approaches and required time and space complexity reasoning.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• In-Memory URL Shortener: Encode and DecodeMedium

  Design an in-memory URL shortener class supporting fast encoding and decoding between original long URLs and compact short URLs using hash maps.

  MicrosoftSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen