Passed every round at Microsoft, then the AA round buried me on system design
Software Engineer·Onsite·2026
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Microsoft / SWE
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System design depth is not a vibe — it is drilling failure modes, capacity math, and tradeoffs. Exactly right. The AA round goes five whys deep.
The AA round being the one that matters most makes the earlier rounds feel like qualifiers. It is rough that you cleared all of them and hit the wall there.