Microsoft Corporation Developer Interview Questions, Process, and Tips

Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

This was a 60 minute technical round involving questions based on data structures, OOPS concepts, DBMS and projects that I had mentioned in my resume.

Q1. 
Nth Fibonacci Number Problem Statement
Calculate the Nth term in the Fibonacci sequence, where the sequence is defined as follows: F(n) = F(n-1) + F(n-2), with initial conditions F(1) = F(2) = 1.
Input:
...read more
Ans. 
Calculate the Nth Fibonacci number efficiently using recursion or dynamic programming.
• Implement a recursive function to calculate the Nth Fibonacci number.

• Use memoization to store previously calculated Fibonacci numbers for efficiency.

• Consider using dynamic programming to optimize the solution.

• Handle edge cases such as N = 1 or N = 2 separately.

• Ensure the solution works efficiently for large values of N (up to 10000).
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Q2. Can you provide a program demonstrating operator overloading in OOP?
Ans. 
Operator overloading in OOP allows custom behavior for operators like +, -, *, etc.
• Operator overloading is a feature in OOP that allows defining custom behavior for operators

• Example: Overloading the + operator to concatenate strings or add two numbers

• Example: Overloading the * operator to perform matrix multiplication
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Q3. What is function overloading?
Ans. 
Function overloading is when multiple functions have the same name but different parameters or return types.
• Allows multiple functions with the same name but different parameters or return types

• Helps improve code readability and maintainability

• Example: int add(int a, int b) and float add(float a, float b)
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Q4. What are the differences between C and C++?
Ans. 
C is a procedural programming language while C++ is a multi-paradigm programming language with object-oriented features.
• C is a procedural programming language while C++ supports both procedural and object-oriented programming.

• C does not support classes and objects while C++ does.

• C does not have built-in support for exception handling while C++ does.

• C does not have namespaces while C++ does.

• C does not have function over
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Round duration - 45 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

HR round that lasted for 45 minutes. Did brainstorming on puzzles and HR asked questions to know more about me.
Tips : During HR, think before you speak, they can catch any word that you speak. Prepare well for aptitude, as they shortlist less people after the test. Ask good questions during the end of the interviews. It might impress them. So prepare for it before going for the interview. Lastly, don’t be nervous, HRs are only trying to make you nervous during the interview as a part of the stress test.

Q1. How can you measure 45 minutes using two identical wires?
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Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Medium

This was a 60 minute technical round where the interviewer asked programming based questions and questions on DBMS concepts.

Q1. 
Maximum of All Subarrays of Size k
Given an array of 'N' non-negative integers and an integer 'K', your task is to find the maximum elements for each subarray of size 'K'.
Input:
The first line contains...read more
Ans. 
Find the maximum elements for each subarray of size 'K' in an array of non-negative integers.
• Iterate through the array and maintain a deque to store the indices of elements in decreasing order.

• Pop elements from the deque if they are out of the current window of size 'K'.

• The front of the deque will always have the index of the maximum element in the current window.
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Q2. Can you explain the ACID properties in the context of database management systems?
Ans. 
ACID properties are a set of properties that guarantee the reliability of transactions in database management systems.
• Atomicity ensures that either all operations in a transaction are completed successfully or none of them are. For example, transferring money from one account to another should either be completed in full or not at all.

• Consistency ensures that the database remains in a consistent state before and after ...read more
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Q3. What is write-ahead logging in DBMS?
Ans. 
Write-ahead logging is a technique used in DBMS to ensure that changes are recorded in the log before they are applied to the database.
• Write-ahead logging ensures that changes are first written to the log file before being applied to the database to maintain data integrity.

• It helps in recovering the database in case of a system crash or failure by replaying the log entries to bring the database back to a consistent sta...read more
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Q4. What are the deadlock avoidance schemes?
Ans. 
Deadlock avoidance schemes are strategies used to prevent deadlocks in a system.
• Banker's algorithm: Ensures that the system will never enter an unsafe state by keeping track of available resources and only granting a request if it does not lead to a deadlock.

• Wait-die and Wound-wait: Two deadlock prevention schemes used in transaction processing systems to avoid deadlocks by allowing transactions to wait or abort based ...read more
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Q5. What is a clustered index?
Ans. 
A clustered index is a type of index that sorts and stores the data rows in the table based on their key values.
• Defines the order in which data is physically stored in a table

• Only one clustered index per table

• Helps in improving the performance of queries that involve range searches or sorting

• Example: Clustered index on a table's primary key
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Round duration - 60 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

This was a 60 minute technical round where the interviewer asked data structure based questions, questions on OOPS and OS concepts.

Q1. What is a virtual function in C++?
Ans. 
A virtual function in C++ is a function that is declared within a base class and is redefined by a derived class.
• Virtual functions allow a function to be overridden in a derived class.

• They are used in polymorphism to achieve runtime binding.

• The base class function must be declared as virtual for dynamic binding to occur.

• Example: virtual void display() = 0; // pure virtual function
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Q2. Can you explain the malloc() and free() operations in the context of memory management in C?
Ans. 
malloc() is used to dynamically allocate memory in C, while free() is used to release allocated memory.
• malloc() allocates a block of memory of specified size and returns a pointer to the beginning of the block.

• free() deallocates the memory previously allocated by malloc() or calloc().

• Example: int *ptr = (int*)malloc(5 * sizeof(int)); // Allocates memory for 5 integers

• Example: free(ptr); // Deallocates the memory alloca
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Q3. What is structure padding?
Ans. 
Structure padding is the concept of adding empty bytes to a structure to align its data members on memory boundaries.
• Structure padding is done to optimize memory access and improve performance.

• Padding is necessary because most processors require data to be aligned on specific memory boundaries for efficient access.

• For example, if a structure contains a char followed by an int, padding may be added after the char to ali
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Round duration - 30 minutes
Round difficulty - Easy

HR based round that lasted for 30 minutes. The interviewer asked question to know more about me.