After a big breakfast and a morning spent studying C++ questions in Borders, I grabbed my bags and headed down the road to Microsoft. Nervous? A little, but I kept my cool. My first meeting was with my recruiter, Katie. This was positively my best meeting. We really hit it off. I suppose it is her job to put me at ease before the technical questions start flying, but it was nice to know I have an ally. She gave me some excellent pointers on how to tackle the questions during the rest of the day. She also took a personal interest in me beyond my coding abilities. I appreciated that.
They shuttled me over to my interviews in a very cool hybrid Ford car outfitted with some crazy cool toys that coordinated the various cars. My first two interviews were with the Search group and the following two were with MSN accounts. How did they go? At no point did I feel like I was doing exceptionally well, but I managed. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what to expect. If I had to guess, I’d say I won’t be getting an offer this time around. I tend to over analyze these things and lean towards the pessimistic side (only the paranoid survive), but I know I wasn’t doing as well as I did in my IBM interviews. I felt like my better personal qualities were not fully revealed during the interviews and my less than perfect knowledge of C/C++ was overly present.
The differences between an IBM interview and a Microsoft interview, at least in my case, were that Microsoft placed importance on implementation of code and IBM placed importance on design. IBM asked harder questions when it came to coordinating development of large scale systems, and Microsoft asked harder questions in terms of small but highly complex problems. Which is a better way of interviewing? I’m not sure, but I know I tend to take a big picture approach to most problems and worry about the details of implementation later. For better or worse 
My real talents shine when I have the ability to come up with creative solutions to complex problems. I know there are probably legions of coders who are better and faster than me, however, I’ll go to bat with my creative solutions any day.
The real question is should I get an offer at Microsoft, would I take it? To be honest, I’m not sure. It would highly depend on the group and my job responsibilities. All four interviews were for very hot areas of Microsoft doing interesting work. Of course, if I don’t get an offer from Microsoft it would make the decision quite easy. I really hope I get an offer.
I am glad that Microsoft gave me the opportunity to come out to Seattle and interview with them. It was nice to meet face to face with a potential future employer and see exactly what opportunities they have to offer. Even if I don’t get an offer from Microsoft this time around, it was still worth it to better prepare myself for future interviews. There’s a good chance I’ll go through another Microsoft interview in the future. In addition, I really had an amazing time in Seattle! I know I made the most of it.