That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
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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
#2It's interesting to see how interviews often test more than technical skills. I probably would've made the same choice and asked for another question too man. Really enjoyed reading this.
Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
#3A classically terrible interview question. Solving riddles in realtime is almost never a real job skill. _Maybe_ in an incident, but you’d be relying on tooling and experience, not an intern.
Same with leetcode at startups. It makes no sense. You’re almost certainly not going to do algorithms work. It’s only relevant if you’re looking for people willing to grind bullshit, which is certainly some jobs, but, again, you’re almost never doing this under arbitrary time pressure with someone watching over your shoulder judging and not helping.
My advice: if you encounter this, don’t work there. If a company doesn’t value testing relevant skills for candidates, don’t expect leadership to be strong critical thinkers once you get there.
Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
#4A classically terrible interview question. Solving riddles in realtime is almost never a real job skill. _Maybe_ in an incident, but you’d be relying on tooling and experience, not an intern. Same with leetcode at startups. It makes no sense. You’re almost certainly not going to do algorithms work. It’s only relevant if you’re looking for people willing to grind bullshit, which is certainly some jobs, but, again, you…
Classical algorithms kind of thinking is similar to ML research.
Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
#5Microsoft is a dumpster fire. You probably dodged a bullet. Source: I work in the dumpster fire
Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
#6It's interesting to see how interviews often test more than technical skills. I probably would've made the same choice and asked for another question too man. Really enjoyed reading this.
What was the lesson learned?
I’m guessing they didn’t care whether or not the OP knew the answer, they just wanted to see how they solved the problem and cramming for the test is the anti-pattern because that’s what the try-hards do and you generally don’t want try-hards around except where you need people to grind out things.
Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
#7I’ve been through the Microsoft loop(s) several times over the years, and (to borrow from Tolstoy) each was unhappy in its own way. There were great people who would have been a pleasure to work with but always at least one joker in the deck. One just had to laugh because it was so obvious it wasn’t me.
I remember speeding through the loop for something closely analogous to my job at the time, only to be suddenly told by the hiring manager (who up to that time was a strong supporter) in a final interview that I wasn’t qualified. Not wanting to invest any more energy, I formally withdrew, only to get a call from him protesting why I’d do such a thing. Or being told to leave at the end of the day only to be called to drive back 20 miles immediately during dinner, and finding out later that was a mistake. Or being literally screamed at (spittle in my face!) that HPC was only MPI and nothing but MPI. Or being yelled at that Windows Server was exactly the same as an enterprise storage system like EMC/HP/Hitachi. The hits go on.
Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
#8A classically terrible interview question. Solving riddles in realtime is almost never a real job skill. _Maybe_ in an incident, but you’d be relying on tooling and experience, not an intern. Same with leetcode at startups. It makes no sense. You’re almost certainly not going to do algorithms work. It’s only relevant if you’re looking for people willing to grind bullshit, which is certainly some jobs, but, again, you…
The speed with which I can remember some obscure AIX partitioning-related fact during an incident, for example, is orders of magnitude faster than the speed with which I would figure out which of 12 marbles is slightly heavier than the others.
Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
#9A classically terrible interview question. Solving riddles in realtime is almost never a real job skill. _Maybe_ in an incident, but you’d be relying on tooling and experience, not an intern. Same with leetcode at startups. It makes no sense. You’re almost certainly not going to do algorithms work. It’s only relevant if you’re looking for people willing to grind bullshit, which is certainly some jobs, but, again, you…
This was an internship interview over a decade ago. Nothing wrong with a brain teaser interview question under those circumstances. What would you rather ask an internship candidate? They don’t have work experience or real world skills.
Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
#10Theres a Sphinx working at Microsoft and you proved that you aren't capable of adapting to the team culture.