August 3, 2026
Rejected by the Riddle Gatekeepers
That time when I failed the Microsoft interview
He told the truth in a big job interview and the internet says the real test was pure nonsense
TLDR: A student told the truth in a Microsoft internship interview, got a harder puzzle, and didn’t get the job. In the comments, readers turned the real story into a roast of riddle-based hiring, with jokes about Sphinxes and claims the company interview process is chaos.
A would-be Microsoft intern walked into a 2015 phone interview feeling prepared, honest, and maybe a little too idealistic — and walked out with a rejection email a month later. The big twist? He was asked one of those old-school puzzle questions about odd marbles on a balance scale, admitted he already knew it, and asked for a different one. That second puzzle sank him. Cue the comment section turning into a full-on courtroom drama over whether he was brave, naive, or accidentally speedran his own downfall.
The loudest reaction was basically: why are companies still doing this nonsense? One commenter slammed riddle-style interviews as a "classically terrible interview question," arguing that solving brain teasers under pressure has almost nothing to do with what interns actually do. Others piled on with a broader rant about hiring hoops, saying these tests often measure who can rehearse corporate trivia and grind arbitrary prep, not who can actually work well.
But the spiciest comments went straight for Microsoft itself. One person declared the company a "dumpster fire" — while claiming insider status, naturally — and another said every Microsoft interview loop is "unhappy in its own way," suggesting the problem wasn’t the candidate at all, but the process. And then came the meme energy: one joker imagined a literal Sphinx working at Microsoft, guarding the gates with riddles and rejecting anyone who doesn’t match the team’s mysterious puzzle culture. Honestly? That might be the most believable part.
Key Points
- •The article recounts a 2015 attempt by a computer science student to secure a Microsoft summer internship.
- •The author was motivated in part by Microsoft’s work on TypeScript and the open-source rewrite of the C# compiler.
- •After emailing a contact from Microsoft’s job portal, the author was invited to phone interviews by the university recruiting team.
- •Preparation with Cracking the Coding Interview closely matched the actual interview format, including behavioral questions and brain teasers.
- •When presented with a known marble puzzle, the author disclosed that they already knew it, requested another question, failed to solve the replacement riddle, and later received a rejection email.