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Interview Questions
Practice 9403 coding, system design and machine learning questions from 546 companies, sorted by role, topic and interview round. Every question has step-by-step hints, a code runner that supports 8 languages and an AI mentor; members also get the full solution walkthrough.
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Showing 5641–5670 of 9403 results
- MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerRespond to a Reliability Regression Shortly After Deployment
Respond to a post-deployment latency or reliability regression with scoped diagnosis, safe rollback decisions, customer-impact measurement, and prevention.
Software Engineering FundamentalsOnsite - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerResume Deep Dive: Technical Decisions, Personal Contribution, Challenges, Impact
A resume-driven behavioral interview that walks through a past project in depth: the architecture and technical decisions, what the candidate personally contributed, the hardest challenges, and the measurable impact. It tests ownership, technical judgment and clear, structured storytelling.
Behavioral & LeadershipOnsite - MicrosoftHardSoftware EngineerReturn Top K Open Businesses
This problem tests your ability to filter data streams and maintain a top-K collection using a priority queue with custom sorting logic.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical ScreenSortingHeapsFiltering - MicrosoftHardSoftware EngineerReturn a topological ordering of a graph
This question tests the ability to implement Kahn's algorithm or a DFS-based approach to perform a topological sort while correctly handling cycle detection.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical ScreenGraphTopological SortKahn's Algorithm - MicrosoftMediumMachine Learning EngineerReturn the k most frequent values in an array with a deterministic tie rule
Return the k values that occur most often in an integer array, ranked by frequency with ties broken by the smaller value. It tests frequency counting, selecting the top k efficiently and producing a deterministic order when several values tie at the cutoff.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerReturn the k values in a sorted array closest to a target, with smaller-value ties
Given a sorted integer list, a count k and a target value, return the k elements closest to the target in ascending order. The problem tests a precise tie rule that favors smaller values, duplicate values, targets outside the array's range, and working efficiently on already sorted input.
Coding & AlgorithmsOther - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerReverse linked list in fixed-size groups
This question evaluates proficiency with singly linked list manipulation, pointer/reference management, in-place group operations, and complexity reasoning including time and constant extra space.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsite - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerRotate a 3×3 digit grid by 180°
This problem tests your ability to perform spatial transformations on a fixed-size 2D structure while maintaining data integrity across a transformation.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsiteArraysMatrixStrings - MicrosoftMediumSite Reliability EngineerSQL: count files where bull and bear appear as standalone space-delimited words
SQL practice question: given a table of files and their text content, count how many files contain the words bull and bear as standalone, space-delimited words. It tests careful pattern matching, case sensitivity, NULL handling, and returning a row for each word even when its count is zero.
Data Manipulation (SQL/Python)Onsite - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerSenior Engineer Behavioral: Explaining Something You Learned Recently and Applied
A senior software engineer behavioral question asking the candidate to describe one thing they learned recently. It tests curiosity and learning habits, the ability to explain a new concept clearly and accurately with its limits, and whether the learning was applied to real work with a visible result.
Behavioral & LeadershipHR Screen - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerSenior Engineer Behavioral: The Toughest Situation You Handled at Work and How
A senior software engineer behavioral question about the hardest challenge or most difficult situation the candidate has handled at work. It tests judgment under uncertainty and pressure, how the problem was diagnosed and prioritized, communication with stakeholders, an honest outcome, and lessons applied afterward.
Behavioral & LeadershipHR Screen - MicrosoftHardSoftware EngineerShard a Large Input Embedding Table Across Devices
Compare vocabulary and hidden-dimension embedding sharding through per-rank storage, token routing, hidden-state layout, skew, and downstream communication.
ML System DesignOnsite - MicrosoftHardSoftware EngineerShard an LM Head and Combine Distributed Logits
Shard an LM head by vocabulary or hidden width, distinguishing complete logits from partial dot products and exact distributed top-k from full-distribution sampling.
ML System DesignOnsite - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerSimulate a Throttled Function Wrapper That Keeps Only the Latest Pending Call
A coding simulation of a throttle wrapper: given a cooldown length and sorted call times, report which calls actually run and when, where calls arriving during a cooldown keep only the latest one pending. It tests precise event ordering, an explicit rule for calls at the exact moment a cooldown ends, and an efficient single pass.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsite - MicrosoftEasySoftware EngineerSizes of 4-Connected Foreground Regions in a Binary Image, in Scan Order
Given a binary image stored as a matrix of 0s and 1s, return the size of every region of horizontally or vertically connected foreground pixels, ordered by when each region is first reached in a top-to-bottom, left-to-right scan. It tests grid traversal, connected components, and handling a single region that covers up to a million pixels.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsite - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerSolve Three Coding Interview Problems
This problem tests your ability to manipulate sorted data, optimize for mathematical properties, and implement efficient data structures for string prefix operations.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical ScreenArraysMathTrie - MicrosoftHardSoftware EngineerSolve Throughput, Rate Limiting, and LFU
This problem tests your ability to design a system with O(1) time complexity for cache operations and time-window-based request tracking.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsiteData StructuresHashingSliding Window - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerSolve binary-search knapsack & graph shortest path
This question evaluates a candidate's ability to apply algorithmic optimization by using binary search instead of dynamic programming for a knapsack-style selection problem and to construct and compute shortest paths on a weighted graph from custom input.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment - MicrosoftEasySoftware EngineerSolve binary-tree reverse printing and LPS
This question evaluates proficiency with tree data structures and level-order traversal semantics for reverse level printing, as well as string algorithmic reasoning and dynamic programming concepts for computing the longest palindromic subsequence, categorized under Coding & Algorithms.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerSolve budget queries and shortest path
This question evaluates algorithmic design and data-structure selection for efficient preprocessing and query answering, along with shortest-path computation and graph representation choices, testing complexity analysis, large-input handling, path reconstruction, and edge-case reasoning in the Coding & Algorithms domain.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment - MicrosoftHardSoftware EngineerSolve cache, grid path, and substring problems
This problem tests your ability to implement an LRU cache, solve a dynamic programming problem on a grid with constraints, and optimize string searching using the sliding window technique.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsiteHash MapLinked ListDynamic Programming - MicrosoftEasySoftware EngineerSolve four classic algorithm problems
This set evaluates proficiency in core algorithms and data structures: tree traversal and order manipulation (zigzag level-order), dynamic programming and subsequence reasoning (longest palindromic subsequence), numeric algorithms and search/approximation (integer square root), and positional numeral systems/base conversion (spreadsheet column to number). These problems are commonly asked to assess algorithmic thinking, complexity analysis, and handling of edge cases in the Coding & Algorithms domain, testing both conceptual understanding of underlying principles and practical application of implementation techniques.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerSolve load balancing and perfect pairs
This question evaluates algorithm design, correctness proof, and complexity analysis skills by combining a contiguous partitioning load‑balancing optimization with a combinatorial/number‑theoretic pair‑counting problem.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment - MicrosoftHardSoftware EngineerSolve power jumps and graph tour
This problem tests your ability to optimize minimal operations using bitwise properties and to determine the existence of a specific graph traversal path.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical ScreenGreedyBitmask DPGraph Theory - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerSolve three scheduling and array problems
This multi-part question evaluates algorithmic problem-solving skills across task scheduling with cooldowns, in-place array deduplication, and string rearrangement to avoid adjacent duplicates, highlighting concepts such as frequency counting, scheduling constraints, and two-pointer or in-place techniques within the Coding & Algorithms domain.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsite - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerSort Three Categories In Place
This question evaluates proficiency in in-place array manipulation, constant-space algorithms, and linear-time partitioning techniques. Commonly asked in Coding & Algorithms interviews to assess algorithmic efficiency, pointer/index management, and reasoning about invariants, it focuses on practical application of algorithmic concepts rather than purely theoretical understanding.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerStream output until stop token appears
This problem tests your ability to process streaming data from a generator while detecting a multi-character stop sequence that may be split across data chunks.
Coding & AlgorithmsTechnical ScreenStringsStreamingGenerators - MicrosoftMediumData ScientistTest classifier difference with McNemar's test
This question tests a data scientist's ability to apply McNemar's test for comparing paired classifiers, a core competency in statistical hypothesis testing and model evaluation. It assesses practical knowledge of contingency table analysis, exact vs. asymptotic tests, confidence interval construction, and multiple testing correction in machine learning contexts.
Statistics & MathOnsite - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerThread Safety, Deadlock Prevention, and Arrays vs Linked Lists
A rapid-fire software engineering fundamentals round covering what makes code thread-safe, what a deadlock is, the main ways to prevent, avoid or recover from deadlocks, and how arrays and linked lists compare. It tests precise definitions, concrete examples and practical trade-offs such as lock ordering and cache locality.
Software Engineering FundamentalsOnsite - MicrosoftMediumSoftware EngineerTraverse a Matrix in Clockwise Spiral Order
Traverse a rectangular matrix in clockwise spiral order without modifying the input. Learn the four-boundary technique and the guards that prevent duplicate visits on the final row or column.
Coding & AlgorithmsOnsite
Microsoft