My interview experience with Microsoft

It was during the winter break after the first semester that I felt like I was somehow managing to survive in the lonely mushy pond, L-1170 at Chapin. It lacked the presence of my room-mate. To add more to anxiety was the preposterous lab work with the pressure of earning some kind of funding for the semester to come. This was when to my surprise an email from Microsoft, interested in having an interview with me dropped into my inbox like a positive ray slit through the dark clouds of apprehension. It was 11th January, the most awaited day so far at Stony Brook.
I wanted to prepare a lot for the interview but I put my lab work to priority. I studied in the most conventional way. I incremented the hits on websites ranked highly by Google for the search string “Microsoft interviews”. It was the first telephonic interview I was going to have and also had to code through windows live meeting. It was 6pm EST in the evening on 22nd January and my heart was pumping at a high rate until it exhaled ‘hello’ in anticipation to Anthony’s. ‘hello, I am senior software Dev Engineer at Microsoft’ he said and we had a chat about my projects and he enquired about what I would like to work on. Followed by this were 2 simple programming problems which made life easier. The interview ended very optimistically for me.
As anticipated, I received an email stating that I got through the first round on 6th February 2008. Well it was time to rejoice because I was invited to Seattle for the next series of interviews. I felt privileged, but lately realized that it is pretty normal. I realized that I had to focus on the interviews and not the fantasies of being at Microsoft. I broadcasted emails to friends and seniors if they could help me with the interview, since a few of them had an interview experience. My seniors provided a bunch of links that had puzzles and algorithms typically asked at Microsoft. To the rescue was “Programming interviews exposed”, which prepared me enough to think and answer questions that I would not even understand [:P].
It was a big day – 17th February and I mis-timed the flight timings from 4pm to 12.30pm, hopefully wasn’t the other way. On reaching Seattle airport I booked a big long white limousine. It was a royal experience worth $60 for a 15 min ride from the airport to Fairfield Inn. I could not resist asking the driver for a photograph with the beauty. I entered the queen suite with 2 double beds, a spacious spotless tiled bathroom and a 29inch television. I was just amazed by the fact that a company could invest so much in a candidate they are not sure to recruit; greeting with – “We believe that you are one of the best”. I believe candidates come to prove their belief a myth, and I hoped that I was different.
“Hi, I am Mike, your co-coordinator at Microsoft. You will be meeting with 2 teams today and will have 4 rounds of interviews with 4 different people. Good luck and see you in the evening after the interviews”. Everything well defined in 3 sentences; I had already started to feel the precision. The Microsoft campus was small to the extent that it had shuttle services to commute. “I am Craig Lee, the Dev Lead at Microsoft. Lets have a talk in my office”. Building 35 room 1137 and the cabin door closed. “so, What would Pratik’s friend speak about Pratik?”. Well, he is an asshole – what am I thinking… “Pratik is a smart guy and a very helpful friend. He manages all his businesses well and is great to have fun with”. End of question1. Woot! I managed it and so did I the entire interview. The rest of the day was followed by running through the maze of cubicles answering questions that would so called prove me a good candidate for the internship. I met Mike with his agnostic reply about my acceptance and left to the hotel tired.
Knock knock - It was 6.30pm and Sowjanya was at the door ready for outing. I was in my bed trying to relax my neurons but to the knock I responded- “coming”. It was time for the fun part sponsored by Microsoft (fully) but we fell short of time and ended up having a bird’s eye view of Seattle through the space needle center, relishing dinner at Bombay grill and watching Atonement. Everything felt so good until I had to catch my flight back to school the next morning with an optimism of getting in.
It was 22nd February when I was expecting a reply about my interview. It was 2.30pm and I was tying the tie knot and polishing my blazer for an interview with Goldman Sachs. I hit F5 and the most awaited result of the year appeared on the web page. “Congratulations, you will be receiving an offer from Microsoft! In fact both teams you interviewed with would like to make you an offer to intern here this summer. Now you need to choose which team sounds like the best fit.” This was the first time when I felt that I was not bad. I was on top of the world and realized late that I was late for my interview. But the interview then was mere a formality. I felt that I was very lucky and life has much more for me ahead…