Disclaimer: This post is a completly unofficial and anecdotal guide by former NTs for upcoming NTs. The goal is to help y’all make the most out of the New Technologist program at Microsoft and Cyborg Mobile.
Former NTs can contribute here.
Non-NTs can greatly benefit from the After NT section where aceing Explore/SWE/PM final round intern Microsoft interviews is the primary concern.
- My name is Hamza, and I was a New Tech during the 2021 summer. I am now an upcoming Software Engineer intern at Microsoft. First in the family to go to college. Before New Techs, I was working different crappy jobs while balancing school and struggling to break into tech.
- Hi! I'm Vianne, and I was a New Tech during Summer 2022. I'm an incoming Product Manager Intern at Microsoft for Summer 2023. In my free time, I like looking at SpongeBob memes.
The New Techs website says, “You’ll learn all about the product lifecycle and create a prototype solution for the modern customer. What’s the product life cycle? What’s prototyping? Don’t worry…we’ll teach you! You’ll get real-world experience in web development and gain hands-on training from senior staff at Microsoft.” - https://newtechnologists.com/
I want to give you a tiny sneak peek into what you do as an NT. There are many events and meetings that are for all NTs throughout the program. These include many important meetings with the NT crew, the NT co-founders Kobie and Vanessa, guest speakers from all over Microsoft (including NT alumni!), motivational speeches that send chills down your spine, and much more.
You will be placed into a team of 5 by the NT crew. You’ll be spending the most time with your team of 5. Together, you will choose a problem statement to solve and develop a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) using the technologies learned throughout the program (last year, it was HTML, CSS, JS, React, and Firebase). In the end, your team presents the product that you made to employees all over Microsoft. Will it be challenging? Absolutely! However, it will be a gratifying experience in the end.
Each team of 5 has two coaches, a MSFT Software Engineer and a Program Manager, aiding you along the process of developing your MVP. Each NT will also get paired with an individual mentor who is a Full-Time Employee (FTE) at MSFT. Groups of teams will be assigned to an engineering instructor, where all of you will attend hands-on lectures that teach the technologies you and your team need to implement your MVP.
- In the past, the “golden ticket” toward getting into tech or any field was simply having a college degree. That is no longer the case. For many, NT was the “golden ticket” opportunity that gave them the proper jumpstart they needed. This is even more true for minorities and individuals who have non-traditional backgrounds. They simply don’t have the same opportunities that most do.
- Honestly, NT is such a fun and rewarding experience. Not only do you learn a lot about the tech industry, you learn more about yourself. You get constantly pushed out of your comfort zone and end up amazed about how much you were able to accomplish so much in a short time.
- You make so many meaningful connections and friends! You’ll meet so many bright-minded, hard-working, and enthusiastic individuals from many different backgrounds.
- Doing well in the program gets you a referral. This referral gives you an opportunity to final round interviews at Microsoft for either explore, software engineering, or program manager internships. These don’t grow on trees, ya know!
- Having Microsoft on your resume opens many doors. This means you’ll have a better chance of getting past resume screens and more opportunities to interview at other awesome companies.
Honestly, you’re good enough as you are right now! Don’t stress too much about being “prepared” because you were picked to be an NT for a reason. You will be taught everything you need to do well! Again, completely optional, but for those who just can’t wait to get a headstart, here are some things that might be helpful to do beforehand.
- Set up your dedicated “workspace”. If possible, since this opportunity is remote, dedicate a quiet and non-distracting space where you live only for working in NT. This can be as simple as a desk or table where you work on your provided work laptop. Why? Have you ever tried to focus inside a burning building? Our behavior is often influenced by the environment that we are in. For example, if you try to study in the same area you eat, Netflix and chill, and play video games, it will be too hard for you to get into deep working sessions and pay attention during your internship.
- More on dedicated workspaces:
- VIDEO: Working from Home: How to Set Up Your Workspace
- VIDEO: Working From Home: How to Stay Focused
- Make a LinkedIn post about getting into NT. This is a powerful networking opportunity because other accepted NTs will connect with you and talk about how they’re looking forward to the internship.
- Make an unofficial discord server and have enough mods to maintain the server. Add channels and bots like every other server. Mods should take responsibility for keeping the server organized and lively. I can’t imagine this past NT experience without the discord server!
Technical Preparations:
- Install and play around with Visual Studio Code (not “Visual Studio”!!). For example, open a file, make a new one, run your code, learn more about the terminal, find color themes you like, etc.
- Brush over basic web development in HTML, CSS, and JS. For more, challenge yourself to build a simple to-do list website. You can even follow tutorials online on youtube like the one I’ve listed below.
- Learn the basics of Git. Using Git, figure out how to contribute code to a GitHub repository. For example, find out how to create a GitHub repository, create a branch, add some random code, and commit the new code to the repository.
- Skip to the “After NT” section and get a head start for your upcoming recruiting season.
Technical resources relating to the points above:
- VIDEO: VSCode Tutorial For Beginners - Getting Started With VSCode
- To-do list project you can follow:
- VIDEO: GitHub with VS Code
Remember! If you don’t do any of these, you’re not behind in any way, shape, or form. Don’t stress at all about this section.
Some advice here goes without saying. But we’re still gonna say it 😊.
Take this opportunity seriously and don’t treat it like just some other online class. You were chosen over so many deserving candidates and you’re getting paid! This means being punctual, diligent, grateful, and open to making mistakes and learning from them.
What can this look like?
- Going to every meeting early (on time is late)
- Always have your camera on w/ proper lighting
- Being attentive and focused
- Ask clarifying questions whenever you’re stuck or unsure of what to do next
- Keep a journal present to write down notes, questions, goals, and more
- Being comfortable with being uncomfortable
During this internship, you’ll learn how to embrace a growth mindset. Read what Microsoft believes about Growth Mindset from their own website.
“We fundamentally believe that we need a culture founded in a growth mindset. It starts with a belief that everyone can grow and develop; that potential is nurtured, not pre-determined; and that anyone can change their mindset. We need to be always learning and insatiably curious. We need to be willing to lean in to uncertainty, take risks and move quickly when we make mistakes, recognizing failure happens along the way to mastery. And we need to be open to the ideas of others, where the success of others does not diminish our own.” - https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/culture
At New Techs, you’re encouraged to take risks and step out of your comfort zone. Read that sentence again and again until it is cemented into your brain. If you ever feel like you’re being pushed towards unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory during NT, that is by design!
One thing that NT tries to teach is to rethink what it means to fail. Is failing at something always a bad thing? It isn’t. Failing is simply a part of life and reflecting on why we failed can offer so many lessons that can help us make progress towards our goals. In NT, you are actually encouraged to take risks and fail. Leveraging your past failures and learning from them is one of the most efficient ways to learn and build a product.
Therefore, during NT, you will “fail fast, fail often, and fail forward.”
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Hear Will Smith talk more on this quote: VIDEO: Will Smith Says Fail Early, Fail Often, And Fail Forward. Fail A Lot
According to a report from a Blind post, 70 percent of tech employees experienced imposter syndrome in the past. I believe the other 30 percent are lying. The experience of imposter syndrome can often be worse if you are a minority or come from a non-traditional background.
One thing that helps you minimize the effects of imposter syndrome is to stop comparing yourself to others. I’d argue, it’s actually irrational to compare yourself to someone else considering that there are so many different variables in one’s own life. Just because you have a different background than someone “ahead” of you, does not necessitate that you do not have the capability of learning and doing well. Never doubt the fact that you got accepted into NT. Believe me, you were not accepted by the Cyborg Mobile and Microsoft crew by accident.
Notes to help you overcome imposter syndrome (taken directly from this Video). The speaker is a former Meta software engineer:
What is Imposter Syndrome?
- Feeling like you don’t belong. Believing you are not as competent as people perceive you to be.
Impacts of imposter syndrome
- Makes you sensitive to any criticism
- Fear of failure, working harder than necessary
- Makes you lacking in initiative or self-advocacy
Accept that imposter syndrome is normal
- Everyone feels inadequate at times
- Reframe your attitude toward discomfort. Meaning, look at discomfort as growth.
Read this empowering article on overcoming imposter syndrome as a tech employee:
Let’s start with what the NT referral process is not. It is NOT a competition. Everyone has the opportunity to get a referral.
So you've been contacted by a recruiter to schedule your final interviews. Congrats! Your final round will consist of 2-4 interviews. Each interview will last about 60 minutes. You will typically be interviewed by senior or principal PMs of the product team that will hire you. You can expect to be asked mostly behavioral and product design questions (more on that below!).
After your interviews, your interviewers will communicate with each other and make the final decision to hire you or not. Then, they will communicate the decision your recruiter who will notify you over email.
According to this IGotAnOffer blog post, below is a breakdown of the types of questions Microsoft likes to ask and how frequently they get asked:
- Behavioral questions (46%)
- Tell me about yourself
- Why PM?
- Why Microsoft?
- Tell me about a time you faced a conflict with a teammate and how you overcame it.
- How do you maintain morale within a team?
- What do you do for fun?
- Design questions (28%)
- Design a search engine for kids.
- What's your favorite/least favorite product and how would you redesign it?
- Design an alarm clock for the blind.
- Design an elevator system.
- Strategy questions (15%)
- How would you get more users to use your favorite product?
- How would you monetize Outlook?
- If you were the CEO of Microsoft, how would you increase usage for Internet Explorer?
- Technical questions (8%)
- How does the internet work?
- Explain recursion to someone who is not technical.
- Explain how an API works.
- Other questions (3%)
- Analytics questions: These questions test how well you work with data.
- Uber is experiencing a drop in ride requests, what do you do?
- How would you measure the success of Instagram Stories?
- Estimation questions: These questions test how you think through problems
and how comfortable you are making assumptions and simple calculations. Interviewers don't care
so much about whether you get to the right answer as long as it makes sense how you got there.
- Estimate the total addressable market for a product.
- Estimate the number of windows in New York City.
- Estimate how many golf balls fit in a Boeing 737 plane.
- Analytics questions: These questions test how well you work with data.
In my personal experience, Microsoft puts a lot of emphasis on behavioral and design questions, so that's where you should dedicate at least 70% of your preparation time.
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Read PM Books: PM books give you a great foundation on how to structure your interview answers. You'll learn classic frameworks for how to answer design questions, strategy questions, and behavioral questions (STAR Method). Below are the ones that were the most helpful to me:
- Cracking the PM Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell and Jackie Bavaro
- Good frameworks
- The Product Diploma by Davis Treybig and Alan Ni
- Good if you're wondering what classes to take and clubs to get involved in that will give you the most transferrable skills for PM
- Cracking the PM Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell and Jackie Bavaro
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Watch Mock Interviews: Seeing how experienced PMs go about answering commonly asked PM interview questions will give you ideas on how to better approach and structure your answers. Below are some of my favorite YouTube channels:
- Exponent: Expert mock interviews with current PMs from Microsoft, Google, etc.
- JJ Never Sleeps: Thorough interviews hosted by a LinkedIn PM
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Practice!!!: The best way to learn is by practicing! Reach out to other NT's through the NT Discord server to set up mock interviews. For about 2 months, I mocked once a week, focusing on a different type of PM question each week! I found mock interviews THE BEST way to prepare.