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If you haven’t read the first part, please read it here – Journey of a boy from small town to Microsoft – An untold story Part 1

In the last part, we read the story of a boy who wanted to live his dream no matter what the cost. We will resume from the moment Microsoft campus visit was announced.

When your friends are celebrating hard, throwing parties, while you try to avoid them and lock yourself instead, questions like this are obvious.
“Which is your favorite company?”, my friend asked.
“You’ll know soon”, I murmured.

It is difficult if you are in a non-enthusiastic environment where people around you are even scared of dreaming big and setting higher goals. In case you speak loud your aspirations, they try to pull your legs. There was no space for mistakes. Opportunities knock rare often and fortunately I knew it. I was gonna get only one chance. That’s it. If I miss it, I miss it. This could be a regret I would have to live with. Other good companies in line offered half the money Microsoft did, leave aside brand value, perks and work culture.

Microsoft express

The time had arrived. It was the same day and time Hogwarts Express leaves from Platform 9¾, 1st September, 11:00 AM sharp. If I wanted to board the train, I had to cross the barrier first. And that barrier was written tests. The train would then test your patience, perseverance, hard work, skills in its journey. If you failed in between, you had to board down. If you passed, it would directly lead you to Microsoft. Like Harry, I too didn’t wish to miss it.

It all began

It was a hectic morning. There was a big rush in washrooms and people were running around. The first written test was pretty easy. 15 objective questions and 30 minutes of time. 77 out of 400 made it. The second written test was scheduled the very next day.

I and Abhinav were sitting next to each other, barely talking to anyone. We had to code 3 problems in 60 minutes on a text editor leaving any scope of compiler correction. You know it went well when you wear a smile after you finish. Luckily, We were able to solve all problems.

Rumors were in the air. Microsoft usually takes time to evaluate the written coding round. We were not sure when the result would be announced. Honestly I wished it to be soon. The sooner, the better.

The quiet before the storm

I was gravely quiet most of the times. May be because I was thinking about the problems, and about the interviews, and about the list of things to do if I get selected. Millions of things were itching in my head.
Solving interview experiences was kind of comforting. “If this is what Microsoft asks, we should do well”, Abhinav and I always said things like this.

Year 2012, September 16

Boarding Microsoft express

I have never been an early bird. Still I managed to wake up at the crack of dawn. We gathered in the auditorium at the first blush of the day. Result of the written was announced. They shortlisted 30 out of 77.

Microsoft Interview

Four years it’s been, and yet, here I write as if it were only yesterday. I remember every small detail, every word I spoke and each discussion I had in interviews. Either my memory is not that fragile or that was quite a big day for me. I still don’t know the answer.

I hadn’t eaten anything since the morning. The spirit was keeping me up. One group interview followed by two rounds of face to face interview each lasting 60-90 minutes and fear of losing it anytime as if a sharp edged sword was hanging across my head was enough for one day. They kept on rejecting candidates as each round progressed. The number trimmed from 30 to 14 to 10 to 5.
In the third round of interview, he said I had already proved I was a great coder and he wanted to check how I perform in other areas like design and testing. I was also asked to showcase my passion for technology. We discussed about various products, their design, why they were designed that way and why I liked them. It was fun discussing the technology (Gap Buffer DS) used in Text Editors, automata and compiler. I could understand his love for these as he was working in Visual Studio team at Microsoft. He then moved on to discussing things like which role I wanted and why so. He saw same passion in me that he observed in one of his friends and he was doing really great at Microsoft. This was the longest round and lasted around 90 minutes.

That night, when I was in cafeteria to catch sandwich, I stumbled upon a guy. He asked me how would I like to be beaten. Funny part was, we had hardly talked in 3 years of college. The same day I got few congratulation mails, although 2 more rounds of interviews were scheduled on the next day. I was very close but I was still one step short of milestone.

Day dreaming

I remember those silly thoughts that popped up our minds. When we’ll make it, we would have two refrigerators in our house. One for food and other for drinks. When we’ll make it…. The food in college hostel was horrible. If you had Veg Manchurian once, you would put all efforts to stay away from food like that your whole life.

Year 2012, September 17

Two more rounds of battle

When your name starts with 2 A’s, you are always the first one to face everything that calls for first name protocol. I suffered it my entire college life. I wasn’t spared in Microsoft interviews either. Each round of interview started with me. Abhinav was the last. Those in-between were trimmed down.
I was just on time for remaining two rounds when they surprised me by telling that my one round of interview was cancelled and I had to face last round with hiring manager on Skype. Unlike an HR round, it was purely technical focusing on design, testing, Big data, Graph and Social Networks. We discussed many things few of which I had already covered in GeeksforGeeks posts. Thanks to Facebook for writing technical details of architecture they use which I was lucky to read. It lasted around 90 minutes.

Restless nights

Time seems to freeze when you’re waiting for it all along. Nights were restless. Days were better neither. Mood swings were at its peak. Right from the day Interviews were over, everyone I stumbled upon asked the same question, “Hey! When is the result coming?” or chirped comfy words like, “I know you’ll make it”. It was eerie and I just didn’t know how to react.

Year 2012, September 24

The BIG day

It was an Intel day. Although I wasn’t interested, I suited myself up to check what they had for me on the plate. People were getting called for interviews and I was waiting for my turn reluctantly. I was just hoping for a magic, to know the results of Microsoft interview. This could push me to do fair in Intel.
And then, I heard my name. “Aashish and Abhinav! Are you there? Please come on the stage”. I wasn’t sure what had just happened. Abhinav was sleeping in his room. He wasn’t even there. Every pair of eyes was staring at me as if I was being X-rayed.
“Congratulation! You have made it. They have just mailed us the result.”
“Microsoft has selected Aashish and Abhinav”, they boomed on microphone after a pregnant pause.
The auditorium burst in cheers and claps. Oh Buoy! That was the moment. I was feeling like a celebrity. Everyone was shaking hand and congratulating. I was on cloud nine.
All I wanted was to run away to tell my parents that they could finally be proud of me, to tell Abhinav that we had done it.

People were running after us. This is a tradition. They beat you with belts on happy occasions. Happier the moment, harder you’re beaten up. You can hide buried treasure or a winning poker hand. But you can’t hide the true happiness. It was all around. Between shaking dad’s voice soaked half in tears & half in happiness and mine out of control flowing emotions, I was feeling no pain.

I was bombarded with messages, mails and calls. For once in my life, I wanted to be alone. It was my time. I wanted to live it. I wished to freeze it. I wished to hold it. Christmas had arrived little early for me and Santa had bestowed on me. It was the best birthday gift I could imagine. It was a magic. They say, all magic comes with a price. And I think I had paid the price.

There were few awkward moments when Abhinav and I overheard things like, “Look, 32 lacs are going”, while we were wandering on college roads.

Year 2012, November

We were in news

It had been almost two months since result was announced. I was on a long vacation, sleeping at home when I got a call from placement department. They wanted a picture of me to feature on the college site. Few days later, my cousin brother called me to tell that he was holding college prospectus featuring picture of me.

The diabetic sweet deal

There is nothing much to do after interviews. Scoring GPA in college was least of my interest. I wanted to learn something which could smoothen my path in company but my friends on Quora advised me not to bother. Most of my time was spent in eating, sleeping, chatting and GeeksforGeeks. I was having a word with one of my friend when he asked me if I was going to join Microsoft or GeeksforGeeks.
As usual, Sandeep and I were discussing about GeeksforGeeks, plans for its growth, revenue model etc. He asked me my thoughts about career. “Seriously, the way GeeksforGeeks is going, you might like to join full time. You can choose designation of your choice – CEO or CTO”, he proposed. This was overwhelming, a very sweet deal indeed. Sandeep’s offer was very difficult to reject. However, a lot of things were on stake. GeeksforGeeks was in very early phase. Working in it full time would render me literally poor. Microsoft was a brand even my grandfather talked about. It was really a tough choice to make. I decided to spend few years at Microsoft to learn things, to learn how stuffs work, to learn something industrial. Microsoft was changing tens of millions of lives and I wanted to be part of it.

If you ask me, whether I regret my decision today. Well, I ain’t sure. Life is made up of small moments and each moment has its own pros and cons. A choice doesn’t come with a warning sign. Sometimes, you don’t know what is going to happen. Sometimes, you don’t wanna care. Sometimes, all you wish is to live the moment. Today when I have nothing to do or when I am really pissed off at work, I think of that time. I get lost in a reverie imagining how my life would have been changed. But thinking about it won’t change a single dime of my life. Even if I join GeeksforGeeks today, it won’t be the same it was 4 years ago.

What do I feel when I look back today?

Decisions you make lead to doom or fame
I guess there is no one to blame
Sometimes you rise, sometimes you fail
But things you learn are worth a hell

There is no secret ingredient. Healthy dose of faith. Genuine commitment. Sharp focus. Hard work. Everything should be put in right proportion. I didn’t do anything different. I believed in myself and followed my passion. This journey was an assorted union of desire, ambition, luck and talent where each of them played their parts beautifully. My life has been a roller coaster and I enjoyed the ride thoroughly. You make mistakes and you learn from them. It is part of life.

GeeksQuiz

Our goal at GeeksforGeeks was to maintain quality content. Few of the readers asked for content to focus on basics. That’s how GeeksQuiz idea was born. It was Sandeep’s brainchild. I wasn’t interested much in site development. I chose to contribute to content instead.

Year 2013, January 28

The most awaited offer letter

I don’t know why most of the comms Microsoft did, happened to be in the early morning. The HR inboxed me the most anticipated offer letter. Three days after we received offer letter, they shot another mail inviting us to an event “New Hire’s Day”. It was exhilarating and hell lot of fun. I have documented my experience here: My experience of New Hires’s Day at Microsoft

Year 2013, Summer

What can be more difficult than solving a problem? Well, creating a problem. IIIT-Bhubaneswar had a tech fest in summer. They asked GeeksforGeeks to organize the coding contest. Designing problems was very challenging. I had never thought from the perspective of being on the other side of the table. There were many things to be taken care. Problem should be new. Domain of problems should be proportionally distributed in different difficulty levels. But how do you decide the difficulty level? If you’re the problem setter, you happen to know the solution. Does that mean the problem would be that trivial for others as well? Have you ever wondered how they categorize difficulty level of Sudoku? I will leave you keep thinking. It was a different experience altogether.
They had also asked for a guest lecture in the college. Since I was in the town, Sandeep asked me if I wanted to go. Sadly, I was not a good public speaker. One of my part wanted to go, but the other was pulling me back due to my fear of stage. Unfortunately, my other part won the battle and I ended up watching Batman.

To be continued…
Signing off for now. Hope you enjoyed reading this. Everyone has a journey. Well this is my journey. Next part is here:

 

Copyright © 2016, Aashish Barnwal,  All rights reserved.