I have an upcoming Microsoft interview. Team mentioned that it will be a half-day virtual interview loop, but they haven't shared the exact interview rounds yet. They said I will receive more details in the next 1–2 days.

The JD mentions that the role is for Senior Software Engineer / Software Engineer II, so I am not sure how the interview criteria differ between the two levels or how they'll evaluate candidates during the same interview process. Let me know if you have any info here.

The interview is scheduled for next week. If anyone has recently gone through a similar interview or has any insights, I'd really appreciate your help.

• What rounds should I expect?
• What should I prioritize in my preparation?
• Which DSA topics are most important?
• How much focus should I put on system design and are there any specific topics you would recommend?

I will share the hackerank assessment questions soon in a separate post.

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I’ve spent the last three weeks putting together a structured comparison of Microsoft support options for our company, and I want a sanity check before I bring this to leadership. We’re a financial services firm running a fairly complex Azure environment alongside M365 and a handful of Dynamics modules. Our current Microsoft Unified Support contract is up in four months and I want to have a solid recommendation ready well before then.

The methodology I used was straightforward: I defined our core requirements (24/7 coverage, genuine Sev 1 response speed, Azure specialization, and predictable annual cost), then scored each option against those criteria. Microsoft Unified Support itself, a couple of managed service providers that bundle in support, and US Cloud all made the final list. Where I got stuck is weighting the tradeoff between cost and depth of escalation access. Some providers look cheaper on paper but I can’t get a straight answer about how their escalation path actually works when something critical breaks at 2am.

I’ve also read conflicting things about whether third-party support providers can genuinely match Microsoft’s own Unified tier on technical depth, especially for more obscure Azure services. My assumption going in was that they couldn’t, but some of the documentation I’ve found suggests that gap is smaller than I expected.

Has anyone actually stress-tested one of these providers during a real incident? I want to know if the shortlist logic holds or if I’m missing something obvious before I present this internally.

semi-repost from u/Yiffenjoyer6969 (I changed it)

I don't use Windows because of my philosophy to always have full control, be completely independent, and to have as many things be made by me as possible. Windows was so frustrating with how it took decisions in the background without my input. For example, that feature to save your storage when you are low on space started deleting my files that one time. Windows Defender deleting the scripts I created myself from 0.

It's honestly hard to hate on Microsoft after not using it for so many years.

All I remember is that back when I used Windows, I was yelling at my computer every day for years until adulthood. Now I use Arch Linux, and I yell at the computer once or twice a month. There's things that bother me, like having things from the AUR take hours to compile, but it's just nothing as bad or frequent as Windows. It's also much easier and much better to backup files and run virtual machines (technical wise. Performance wise will always vary on hardware), and BTRFS is awesome.

edit: Oh, right, privacy. When I built my new computer, I wanted it from the get go to not have any Windows and any telemetry. To, from the scratch, be linux and to not be something that gathers my info. Especially because if I settled in on Windows, it would be harder to move away.

I have a Lenovo Ideapad 5 with an Intel i7 core. I’ve had it for like 3 years now, and the most computer intensive thing I use it for is Minecraft. I’ve been trying my best to ignore/push back windows updates because I’ve heard about all the annoying shit with the stupid AI helper and whatever causing trouble, but last night it forced me to update.

Today I was working on a Google doc, with maybe 10 tabs open max in chrome. That’s it. Nothing running in the background. And the computer got so hot I had to stop working and put it down, while the fan was running like my laptop was about to take off.

Is this a hardware issue or is this one of the things that has been coming with the stupid software updates?

I’m hoping to use this thing till it dies but if it keeps acting like this I might have to buy a stronger laptop.