Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

Share yours, earn XP

51 stories

Likes earn the author +10 XP for the first 3 likes each day

MicrosoftApplied ScientistSenior+
Feb 2026

Fumbled Diffusion, Wrong on Min-Heap, Rejected

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

RejectedTechnical ScreenXP0
MicrosoftSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

Azure Resource Team, Four-Round Virtual Onsite

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

OnsiteXP0
MicrosoftSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

GPU Clustering Phone Screen, Rejected After Four-Round Onsite

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

RejectedOnsiteXP0
MicrosoftSoftware EngineerSenior+
Jan 2026

Azure Storage L64 Loop, Failed on Storage Internals Depth

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

RejectedOnsiteXP0
MicrosoftData ScientistIntern
Jan 2026

OA, Then Three Back-to-Back Rounds, Offer a Month Later

Timeline 10/13: HackerRank OA — one LeetCode problem and one data-processing problem 11/03: 3 rounds, back-to-back interviews 12/03: offer Background: Statistics PhD, resume roughly 80% LLM-related research, no conference publications at the time of the interview (a few projects were finished and submitted), no industry experience. Round 1: the interviewer was a senior guy. 30 minutes of behavior…

OfferOnsite0
MicrosoftData Scientist
Jan 2026

OA Plus Three Back-to-Back Senior Interviews in One Day

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

OfferOnsiteXP0
MicrosoftApplied ScientistSenior+
Jan 2026

Seven Team Loops and a Comp Fight

Locked — open it to unlock the full story with XP.

In progressOnsiteXP0
MicrosoftSoftware EngineerSenior+
Dec 2025

A Level 64 Offer That Still Fell Short

I've always just been a lurker here, never able to see anything useful. Since I'm interviewing right now, I figured I'd post this — hopefully it helps others too. Background: I work at Amazon (aka "the banana factory"), YOE 6+. WA. Let me give the result up front: I applied as senior and got a level 64 offer. After two rounds of negotiation, total comp went from 26 to 30 (215 base + 54/2 sign-on…

OfferOnsite0
MicrosoftData ScientistNew Grad
Nov 2025

Three Back-to-Back Rounds, Offer a Month Later

Timeline 10/13: HackerRank OA — one LeetCode problem, one data-processing problem 11/03: 3 rounds, back-to-back interviews 12/03: Offer Background: Statistics PhD, resume was 80% large-language-model-related research, no conference publications at the time of interviewing (a few projects were finished and being submitted), no industry experience. Round 1: the interviewer gave me 30 min of behavio…

OfferOnsite0
MicrosoftData Scientist
Oct 2025

Four Weeks of Email Chaos, Then the Position Was Filled

Sharing a bizarre experience today: the Microsoft interviewer couldn't receive Gmail emails. I got notified four weeks ago for a coding screen round. I needed to provide 5 interview windows, so I replied, and then... nothing. I waited three days, followed up, and the interviewer said she never received my last email — checked her spam folder too, nothing there. But this one she got. So I gave new…

RejectedOther0
MicrosoftSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Online Assessment, Knapsack DP Timeout Turned Binary Search

I think I probably failed. Two problems in 90 minutes, and right after layoffs they're still running a hiring event, which is honestly a dark joke. The role is general level 62. My first problem was labeled medium difficulty, and the second was said to be harder. But I used knapsack DP for the first problem and it timed out... I ended up rewriting it as binary search right at the wire. They claim…

Online Assessment0

What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

Share your experience to earn XP