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That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

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Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#111

Post by moron4hire »

benrutter wrote: post #92
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)`.

Those kind of abstract CS interview questions never feel that helpful to me, but in all honesty, your story sounds like a job of the interview working. You were able to demonstrate that you were enthusiastic and knowledge about programming as a whole, which is probably more helpful than what they were originally trying to test for.

What is "abstract CS" about binary trees and serialization?

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#112

Post by Kinrany »

barrenko wrote: post #61

HR is modern priesthood, and their function is to prevent the "unwashed" from ascending up the higher ranks. Now there I've made it much worse (or better!) than the actual reality, which is that there's just not enough quality engineering jobs no matter which way you cut it and all of this theatrics result from scarcity.

We have a perfectly good mechanism for dealing with scarcity, it's called scarcity.

It's more plausible that the issue is this being a lemon market

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#113

Post by neuroticnews25 »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #101

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 afte…

If you consider getting hired despite value mismatch winning the interview game, then good judgement would be recognizing that you're expected to push the products aggressively even when it's bad for the client.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#114

Post by alwaysmrno »

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.

"One mouthfull at a time"

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#115

Post by modeless »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #88
AlecBG wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First one water is lower. Ball is more dense than water, in boat displaces its weight in water, in water displaces it's volume Dip for hill roll is faster

A dip increases the speed (decreasing travel time), but also the distance to travel (increasing travel time). Which of those effects dominates depends on the shape of the dip. The hill decreases speed and increases distance, so it's always slower than the straight line.

Most things that can fairly be described as a "small dip" should decrease travel time. When I was presented with the problem it came with illustrations to clarify. Surprisingly hard to make it watertight with text alone.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#116

Post by wofo »

keeda wrote: post #79

> Microsoft, of all places, might sound like a weird company to target in 2026. Heh, Microsoft might actually have been weird to target in 2015, especially in SV / startup circles, given that pg had declared it dead in 2007 ( https://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html ) I guess the Netherlands didn't get that particular memo. In 2026 Microsoft might actually be interesting again, given it's up there in the Mag 7 jockeying…

> especially in SV / startup circles

Lol, I'm increasingly wary of whatever SV / startup circles prefer nowadays... The shitload of BS is ever forthcoming.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#117

Post by makeitdouble »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #101

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 afte…

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

I'd say he didn't get the job because they would have asked him to pressure customers day in day out, he would refuse, never get promoted and be otherwise miserable in an aggressive culture.

IMHO he shouldn't change his answer to please the interviewer, the process is working as intended and I'd assume he found a job that better matched him somewhere else, where his mindset will be better valued.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#118

Post by RealityVoid »

robocat wrote: post #94
AlecBG wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First one water is lower. Ball is more dense than water, in boat displaces its weight in water, in water displaces it's volume Dip for hill roll is faster

Next bail 10 litres of water from the lake into the open-topped boat. What are the effects of the 10 litres of air displaced from within the boat?

Lake level stays the same.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#119

Post by RealityVoid »

inigyou wrote: post #108
a-french-anon wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The water level decreases, along with the shore and anything with it falling within the event horizon. Any other apocalyptic brain teasers?

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#120

Post by wofo »

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…

OP here. I didn't want to end the article in a preachy note, but an implicit point is that I'm doing quite well "despite" my policy of being honest. Monetary rewards are a poor substitute for living up to your values!

Besides... many players in the market actually seek people with "moral integrity" (or whatever the fashionable term is nowadays).

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