Microsoft L61 SDE2 (SSE) Onsite Interview Experience 2025

Date: November 7, 2025

Experience: 4.5 Years

Structure: 4 Rounds (3 consecutive, 1 separate)

Verdict: Selected

**

Round 1 Coding** *

Problem: Design a "PhotoCache," functioning as

Date: November 7, 2025

Experience: 4.5 Years

Structure: 4 Rounds (3 consecutive, 1 separate)

Verdict: Selected

**

Round 1 Coding** *

Problem: Design a "PhotoCache," functioning as a standard LRU Cache where the key is an encoded SHA-256 string and the value is the original photo name. *

Solution: Implemented a string-to-string LRU Cache. The process involved running multiple test cases and debugging initial errors to reach a working solution.

**

Round 2 System Design Concepts & DSA** *

Concepts: Discussion focused on project experience, followed by distributed caching versus single-machine caching. *

Problem: Reverse Odd Levels of Binary Tree. (The interviewer initially proposed an LRU Cache but pivoted after noting it was covered in Round 1). *

Solution: Provided code/pseudocode for the tree traversal. The interviewer was satisfied with the logic without requiring execution or perfect optimization.

**

Round 3 Low-Level Design (LLD)** *

Problem: Design an online Snake and Ladder game. *

Focus: The scope was restricted to Low-Level Design (LLD). *

Solution: Wrote fully functional code that

passed testing. High-Level Design (HLD) was planned but omitted due to time constraints.

**

Round 4 Managerial/AA Round** *

Project: Detailed discussion and counter-questions regarding current projects. *

Coding Problem: Implement the Producer-Consumer problem in Java. *

Solution: Implemented the solution using synchronized methods. While the initial code did not explicitly use wait()/notify(), these concepts were correctly addressed during the follow-up questions. *

General: Included high-level AI questions and standard behavioral inquiries (e.g., "Why Microsoft," qualities of a good employee).