Microsoft Software Engineer interview experience

On that call I ran into some tough DSA questions, including reversing a linked list and finding the kth largest element in an array. It felt like the kind of screen where you can’t be vague—you have to be crisp.

A little later, I went through an onsite that mixed coding with a system design component. The system design question focused on building a scalable URL shortener, and during the coding round I suddenly realized I’d practiced a very similar problem on a site days earlier. That small memory jolt actually helped me settle and think more cleanly. Even with that, I didn’t end up