Microsoft interview questions

Tell me about your approach to make conversations more inclusive

Companies: Microsoft, Lyft, Meta

Last reported Jan 2025

Longest Ideal Subsequence

Given a string s and integer k, find the longest subsequence where the absolute difference between every two adjacent letters' positions in the alphabet is…

Companies: Microsoft

Last reported Jan 2025

Median of Two Sorted Arrays

Find the median of two sorted arrays in O(log(m+n)) time by using binary search to partition the arrays so the left half contains the correct…

Companies: Microsoft, Amazon, Bloomberg, eBay +5

Array · Binary Search · Divide and Conquer

Last reported Jan 2025

Sort an Array

Sort an integer array in ascending order without using built-in sort routines, achieving O(n log n) time and minimal extra space; input size is up…

Companies: Microsoft, Amazon

Last reported Jan 2025

Design a scalable URL shortener

Companies: Microsoft

System Design · System Design Fundamentals

Last reported Jan 2025

Security Design for a Chat App: Threat Model, Encryption, Accounts and Abuse

Companies: Microsoft

System Design

Last reported Dec 2024

Design Uber

Design a ride-sharing service like Uber that allows users to request rides, matches them with nearby drivers, handles real-time tracking, and processes payments.

Companies: Microsoft, Airbnb, Amazon, Google +5

Last reported Nov 2024

Fraud Detection for Microsoft Word: Signals, Risk Scoring and Enforcement

Companies: Microsoft

ML System Design · System Design

Last reported Oct 2024

System design of an Outlook-style email service: delivery, sync and search

Companies: Microsoft

System Design · System Design Fundamentals

Last reported Oct 2024

Design a Chat-as-a-Service Platform That Developers Embed in Their Own Apps

Companies: Microsoft

Real-Time Systems · System Design

Last reported Oct 2024

Generate String to Maximize Unique Two-Digit Numbers Score

Generate a string that maximizes the score calculated by a given function. The function counts unique two-digit numbers in the string and returns the sum…

Companies: Microsoft

Last reported Oct 2024

Plan a Phone Version of Word With Live Co-Editing, Offline Sync and Conflict Merging

Companies: Microsoft

Real-Time Systems · System Design

Last reported Oct 2024

Presenting Your Own Product's System Architecture End to End in a PM Interview

Companies: Microsoft

System Design · System Design Fundamentals

Last reported Oct 2024

Food Truck Software: Customer Ordering App, Crew Tools and Server Architecture

Companies: Microsoft

Product Sense · System Design · System Design Fundamentals

Last reported Sep 2024

Implement Min Heap from Scratch

Implement a min heap data structure from scratch with core operations including insertion, deletion, heapify up/down, and peek functionality to access the minimum element.

Companies: Microsoft

Last reported Aug 2024

Designing a public payments API for outside developers: flows, endpoints and safeguards

Companies: Microsoft

API Design · System Design

Last reported Jun 2024

Minimized Maximum of Products Distributed to Any Store

Given m product types and n stores where each store can hold at most one type (but any amount), minimize the maximum number of items…

Companies: Microsoft

Last reported Jan 2020

Remove Duplicate Lines from a Large File

Design a system to remove duplicate lines from a very large file that cannot be loaded into memory all at once. The solution should efficiently…

Companies: Microsoft

Last reported Jan 2020

Search in Rotated Sorted Array II

Given a non-decreasing sorted array rotated at an unknown pivot (and possibly containing duplicates), determine whether a target value exists in the array. The core…

Companies: Microsoft

Last reported Jan 2020

Set Matrix Zeroes

Given an m×n matrix, set every row and column to zero wherever an element is zero, modifying the matrix in-place. The key challenge is to…

Companies: Microsoft, Meta

Last reported Jan 2020

3Sum

Find all unique triplets in an integer array that sum to zero, ensuring no duplicate triplets in the output. The core challenge is efficiently enumerating…

Companies: Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Bloomberg +5

Array · Sorting · Two Pointers

Add Two Numbers

Companies: Microsoft, Amazon, Bloomberg, Google +2

Linked List · Math · Recursion