How I Prepared For My Interview With Microsoft And Landed The Role

I’m writing this on April 5th, 2022. Yesterday, April 4th, 2022, was my first day at Microsoft as a Software Engineer. It was fantastic!

It’s no secret that big, prestigious tech companies have long, difficult interview processes. Check out my article Let’s Talk About Software Engineering Hiring Processes if you’d like a little bit of insight on why companies hire the way they do.

Here’s how I prepared.

Studying and Learning

With most coveted software engineering roles these days, you can expect to be asked leetcode style coding questions.

I did about 100 leetcode questions in the 3 months leading up to when I sent out my applications. It’s a small number compared to what you might read on Reddit and Blind. The goal is not to memorize questions and hope they show up in the interview. The goal should be to deeply understand important problems in computer science and genuinely improve your problem solving skills. A “quality over quantity” approach is critical.

If you don’t know where or how to get started with these problems, check out these articles: A Beginner’s Data Structures and Algorithms Study Plan, and An Intermediate Data Structures and Algorithms Study Plan.

I made personal projects and published them to my GitHub. I created a personal website with React to brush up on my frontend skills, created some proof of concepts with backend technologies I had never touched like Podman, and reviewed and updated some of my existing projects.

This is a nice way to get exposure to popular, in demand technologies you may not be using in your current role.

Resume and Application

I’m not a resume expert. If you’re really having trouble creating a resume that companies notice, you should get in touch with one. This is just what has worked for me.

The most critical thing when I creating a new resume was understanding my “audience.” Who or what is the first to lay eyes on my resume?

It’s likely going to be resume scanning software, a recruiter, or a person in human resources. You need to create one that impresses them too, not just software engineers. For resume scanning software, avoid templates. Design and build yourself a resume from scratch. There are also websites online that can evaluate how well your resume does against this software. Quantitative business results are great things to see. Here are some examples of points on a resume that would catch the eye. Think numbers:

Optimized API created with .NET Core to reduce request time from 4 seconds to 0.5 seconds to improve vendor experience.

Optimized AWS resources to reduce [organization]’s monthly bill by 12%.

Don’t be afraid to make your resume interesting, within reason. Use icons. Use colors. Make sure it is readable, and not just a wall of text. Use headers and sub-headers. Make sure your font is appropriate and lines of text aren’t too close together.

Conclusion

Be sure you’re prepared for coding challenges, and consider making a personal project to get competent in a modern, practical technology you may not touch in your current role.

Create a resume that impresses the entire organization, not just their software engineers. Make sure it isn’t boring.

Remember to take care of yourself as well. Don’t burn yourself out with practice problems. Get enough sleep, eat healthy, and drink plenty of water.

Thank you for reading!