Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

ochagavia.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 322 posts

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#101

Post by JSR_FDED »

A friend told me about his AWS interview experience. It was a case study describing a potential client, their needs, limitations, etc - trying to be “realistic”.

In the end it came down to either pressuring the client to embark on a complex cloud transition in time for a major sports event (that was a make or break event for the customer) or, as my friend recommended, start with a PoC but do the risky transition after the sporting event to minimize the potential for a catastrophic failure if things didn’t go to plan.

He didn’t get the job because even though the technical attributes were all good, he should have pressured the customer.

My takeaway was that interviews are a game with their own rules, and you have to play by those rules - demonstrating some sense of judgement outside the parameters of the game will not be tolerated.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#103

Post by a-french-anon »

lostlogin wrote: post #83
modeless wrote: post #65

Once long ago when I interviewed at Apple I was asked the classic "fork in the road, two guys, one always tells the truth and one always lies" riddle, with complete earnestness as far as I could tell. Possibly the single worst interview question I've ever been asked. Of course I told the interviewer I'd heard it before and then gave the correct answer. In my case we just ended up chatting about previous experience in…

I have no idea and want the answers: Boat + bowling ball = level stays the same? Ball roll = the constant gradient is quickest?

I find it very easy to solve some of these physics questions by thinking about a degenerate version of it instead, with exaggerated parameters (since these physics phenomenons are described by continuous/monotonic functions).

So for the bowling ball, I replace it with an imaginary marble weighing 1 ton and the answer is now self-evident.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#104

Post by JSR_FDED »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #62
shubhamjain wrote: post #23

As I have grown older, I have realized dead-honesty is a false ideal to live by, especially when it comes to being rewarded in the capitalistic world. I know someone who reached executive level position in a major company and all of his career progress can be traced back to lying on his resume about a NASA internship he never got, which he conveniently purged later from everywhere. I wouldn’t go that far, but I think…

I disagree strongly. Yes, in terms of benefit to yourself honesty may not pay off, but that's not why you should do it. You should be honest (and I try to be honest) because it's shameful to be a deceitful person. Virtue actually matters, it's not all about getting ahead materially.

But what if you know you could make a materially positive impact for the company? Then wouldn’t it be virtuous to play their recruiting game in such a way that you could make that contribution ?

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#105

Post by leni536 »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #67
gambiting wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh? Would you? I have two degrees and I never mentioned exactly what they are on my CVs, literally just like above - "2010-2014 Computer Science at University X". I've reviewed countless CVs when I was a hiring manager for a few years too, and I don't really recall if people wrote down what they got, nor was it ever relevant for any position outside of intern ones.

Whatever the reason for not asking that question, it would be a terrible question to ask an interviewee in that situation. "Did you actually graduate from this place?" It would be the equivalent of asking "did you lie on your CV?" If I wrote a CV and they began asking me questions that were answered by my CV, I would read that as skepticism. Conversely, perhaps the interviewers are so good that they only ask question…

"Did you get a bachelors or masters degree from university X, your CV doesn't say?"

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#106

Post by sgerenser »

MPSimmons wrote: post #99

My favorite (probably apocryphal) Microsoft brain teaser question I've heard is, "If you had to move Mt Fuji, how would you do it?" I've never interviewed there, or been asked that question, but I think it would be a lot of fun to answer.

There’s a whole book on Microsoft’s hiring brainteasers, appropriately from 2004 right around when the practice was waning and brainteasers started to get a bad reputation: How Would You Move Mount Fuji?: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316778494)

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#107

Post by leni536 »

vecter wrote: post #28

I interviewed for an internship in 2006 and didn't get any brainteasers, but I got some pretty interesting questions that were somewhat computer science-related: 1. Suppose you have a binary tree (NOT a binary search tree) where each node with pointers to its parent and children. Given pointers to two arbitrary nodes in the tree, find their lowest common ancestor. 2. My favorite: given a uniform random number generat…

I would assign (3) to language runtimes and calling conventions rather than operating systems.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#108

Post by inigyou »

a-french-anon wrote: post #103
lostlogin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea and want the answers: Boat + bowling ball = level stays the same? Ball roll = the constant gradient is quickest?

I find it very easy to solve some of these physics questions by thinking about a degenerate version of it instead, with exaggerated parameters (since these physics phenomenons are described by continuous/monotonic functions). So for the bowling ball, I replace it with an imaginary marble weighing 1 ton and the answer is now self-evident.

You drop a microscopic black hole off a boat into the lake. Does the water level increase or decrease?

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#109

Post by cucumber3732842 »

lostlogin wrote: post #83
modeless wrote: post #65

Once long ago when I interviewed at Apple I was asked the classic "fork in the road, two guys, one always tells the truth and one always lies" riddle, with complete earnestness as far as I could tell. Possibly the single worst interview question I've ever been asked. Of course I told the interviewer I'd heard it before and then gave the correct answer. In my case we just ended up chatting about previous experience in…

I have no idea and want the answers: Boat + bowling ball = level stays the same? Ball roll = the constant gradient is quickest?

>Ball roll = the constant gradient is quickest?

Steep then flat one because it gets up to speed fastest.

It's a classic "annoy people who've forgotten that newtonian physics is all integrals" problem. Graph the velocity. Look at area under graph.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#110

Post by Cthulhu_ »

cronin101 wrote: post #77

My favourite interview question that I received was when I was asked to write code that would serialize/deserialize a binary tree and was told it was fine to use "any programming language". They received a crash course in the power of Haskell ADT and `deriving (Show, Read)`.

I'm so glad most of my technical interviews weren't about trying to remember things I once learned in college (15-20 years ago now) and never had to use in practice. It's been either practical "build a simplified webshop" tasks, or just an interview talking about my previous experiences. There was one where I had to do a fizzbuzz on a whiteboard but that was about it.
Post reply on HN