5. Microsoft and Google: what to expect

Microsoft (typical, varies by team): recruiter screen → one or more technical screens → a loop of around 4–5 interviews covering coding (DSA), design (system/object-oriented design for experienced roles), and behavioural/collaboration questions. Culture emphasis: growth mindset, collaboration, customer focus. Knowledge of Azure/.NET helps for many teams but isn't always required.

Google (typical): recruiter screen → technical phone/video screen → several interviews (often 4–5) covering coding/algorithms, system design (for experienced roles) and a Googleyness & Leadership behavioural interview. Interview feedback is reviewed by a hiring committee, followed by team matching. Coding is usually in a shared doc/editor without IDE autocomplete — practise writing clean code by hand.

Common across these companies: arrays/strings, hash maps, two pointers, sliding window, trees/graphs (BFS/DFS), heaps, dynamic programming (more at Google), and design topics (URL shortener, rate limiter, chat system, news feed, distributed cache).