
My Interview Experience at Microsoft - parenthesis
http://www.philosophicalgeek.com/2008/08/10/my-interview-experience-at-microsoft/
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ardit33
Interesting read. I don't know the author, but it seems he practiced a lot yet
fumbled some. Which can be normal, as writing code in a whiteboard is just not
natural. To test raw coding skills, it would be a better idea to provide or
have candidates come with a latop with their favorite dev
enviroment/IDE/editors so they can code in a more realistic situation, the way
they do every day.

It is always a good idea to get a good refresh of CS basics, and algorithms,
and more advanced stuff as data graphs, but at the end of the day, (if the
interviewers are good), your raw skills will show up. Just like math, skills
are built in top of each-other and show with time, an you can advance more if
you internalize low level abstractions (pointers, linked lists, hashtables,
etc). You can't just pick a book and learn these things in few days.

But a 9.5 hrs interview is grueling and a tad exessive, also tells something
about the company that you are joining. If they like interviews that long,
means that have some huge bureocratic internal processes. Interviews by 3
technical people, and one manager/product manager should be more than enough
to spot a good a candidate, within a 4hr time-frame.

Anymore than that, it is just a waste a time.

~~~
rantfoil
9.5 hours is actually just thorough. Hiring is the #1 thing any engineering
org has to do right. Remember, a false positive will cost you far more in
dollars, time, and effort than a false negative.

Microsoft is a huge company. The best thing it can do to improve its odds in
the marketplace is to put enough process around hiring such that they can
significantly reduce the false positive rate.

I'd argue more people should do full day interviews than less. You wouldn't
marry someone after knowing them for only 4 hours, so why should a company
hire someone after getting to know them for less than a day? ;-)

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timr
You wouldn't marry someone after 9.5 hours, either.

The problem is, if you insisted that every first date lasted ten hours, you'd
rarely get a second. The ones who did make it though your screen would
probably be neurotic and weird.

~~~
ardit33
i hope you are not really equaling marriage and a job. The average person
stays about 2 years in a job, and they go thru about 10.5 jobs before age of
40.

Most people get married once or twice in their lifes, and expect their
marriage to last forever. Nobody expects that from a job.

You might want to equal getting a job with dating and sleeping with a new
girl, but not getting married ;)

~~~
rantfoil
Well, not quite. But who you get married to will determine a huge amount of
how happy you are, possibly for the rest of your life if you're so lucky. =)

Similarly, for a startup (or engineering team), each hiring decision is so
important that in aggregate it will pretty much determine how happy/productive
you are... and possibly in the case of a startup, for the rest of your life as
well.

The time scales may be different, but the impact is similar.

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KevBurnsJr
Sad but true that landing a job with a great company takes more than charisma
alone.

Last 2 interviews I had I was turned down largely due to poor performance on
coding challenges.

I feel it was the right choice for each company to make. They had really great
teams and I admire them for holding out to hire an equally charismatic
individual with truly excellent coding skills.

The hurt you feel getting turned down when you know you've put your best face
forward is the blunt end of professionalism. A good indicator that you've got
your sight set in the right direction.

------
johnyzee
_There is original art everywhere. I liked the boat made from junk._

Sounds vaguely symbolic.

------
pmorici
"something exhilarating about working for the underdog"

Someone drank the koolaid.

~~~
misterbwong
In the context of his team (Live Search), they really are the underdogs.
Google owns about 59% of the market share in the US as of March '08. Live only
owns about 11%.

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angstrom
This was certainly useful as I'm scheduled to interview with them in a couple
weeks. I know some people who have been interviewed there on both the
accepted/rejected sides of the coin.

You can be technically savy and still not be a good fit for the team and vice
versa. Communication is equally important if not the most important facet. If
a team isn't on the right wavelength you'll have more problems than you can
count.

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babul
I'd suggest continuous practice is the best way prepare for such interviews
(and lifestyles). Write software. Build web apps. Make things. Expose yourself
to different languages and diverse challenges. Do things outside software too.

Then write about it, be it a blog, wiki, or your own personal notes.

Adaptability, creativity, insight, and the ability to think quickly and
accurately and express ideas clearly and concisely are often greatly enhanced
by such activity.

Some people are successful in "cramming" knowledge before an interview (or
exam), but the best ones I know are those who live it and absorb deeply the
learning. They also hone their art, and if you want a truly great company,
these are the people to employ.

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Tichy
Makes me think about the recent articles on decision making, which said that
people who pondered less about their decisions in general were a lot happier
with them. I wonder if the same thing applies for companies (the less they
fuss about hiring, the happier they are with their hires)?

Certainly I can not see somebody stellar enduring a 10 hour interview to get a
job. No offense to the author of the blog article - he might still be
potentially stellar, but not knowing it yet...

Considering the dating analogy: suppose you were on a date with Scarlett
Johansson. If it would took you 10 hours to figure out if you really like her,
she could be forgiven for thinking that there is something wrong with you.

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rokhayakebe
Now imagine the pain you would have to go through before acquisition.

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aswanson
I wonder if it would be good to just have an interviewee just sit with the
team through a couple of debug sessions, or let them have a crack at a nagging
problem in the codebase.

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augustus
The whole process reminded me of the old days of chess competition.

I need to read those books if not simply out of curiosity.

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ardit33
One main reason that I would never ever interview for MS is that I will have
to use Vista. I can live with XP, but god forbid not with Vista.

Is there any MS employee in this board, can they shed some light on what OS-es
do people use to develop with. Maybe it is allowed, but is it frown up to use
a non-MS OS?

~~~
litewulf
Everyone I know there uses Vista (unless they're using something EVEN NEWER
WAHAHA)

But really, Vista-hate? Does Vista _really_ get in the way of you opening MS
Visual Studio (which seems to be the IDE of the day there)?

~~~
pmorici
I'm pretty sure a lot of the real engineers don't use visual studio. I've
heard VIM is popular.

~~~
litewulf
I'm pretty sure most of the engineers at Microsoft use Visual Studio.

And I'm pretty sure they run Windows too.

