I recently interviewed for a full time Data Scientist role at Microsoft. Surprisingly they didnt ask even a single coding question and most of the interviews were around my resume and basic probability. A couple of my friends also had very similar experience. Based upon this experience I have started to judge the quality of work and expectations from a full time DS. TC : New grad from a top CS school
Not surprised to be honest. I know a quite few people who were PM (civil engineering/ system and informational system major) who doesn't code at all later all became Data Scientists. I think it's mainly because there aren't enough trained data scientists in the current market, and so the company is willing to hire people and train them. A couple years ago, Facebook also did the same thing that they will hire people with technical background (CS/Engineering degree) and then train them to be data scientists at Facebook because they just can't find enough people.
Surprising because I got rejected from FB as an experienced DS. And I know a few other really good DS also get rejected from Microsoft, FB etc. I think they might just be looking for the wrong skills as a DS initially until they realize and change the process. Cons of being in an industry that's fairly new.
And they have lower expectations for fresh grad
There is no standard interview at Microsoft. It’s whatever the team decides is needed.
Hiring bar is low.
Hiring bar is low for all lol
Theres no ms standards. And your resume is more important than anything u can regurgitate on a whiteboard anyways.
I disagree with resume being the most important evaluation criteria. If that was true companies should just have walk-in offers for graduates from top schools. Having said that I agree with your point on whiteboard interviews, they are definitely a crude evaluation metric. However, IMHO I don’t think that interviews should be such that a new grad is able to ace it perfectly. To me it just indicates that the organization is super desperate to higher anyone ( lacks good mentors ) or results in the candidate having unrealistic expectations about there abilities.
What I've done in the past 15 years is far more important than knowing how to do some random graph problem that I'll never use in my job.
Microsoft hiring bar varies based on team
What were the basic probability questions?
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My friend interviewed for DS at Microsoft recently. He was asked about ancova modeling, convex optimization, and leetcode medium. Surprising you weren't asked any of it. I think it's team dependent, no standard process. It's unfair but it is what it is.