[hashset]

I'm finishing my undergrad in CS this year and was approached by Microsoft to interview for a "Technical Evangelist" position. The only questions related to programming were:

1.) "Describe Polymorphism" and 2.) "What are the differences between Inheritance and Composition"

The other questions were very head-in-the-clouds, like "What is the biggest problem in existence today that can be solved by software? If you had a budget and a team, how would you solve it?"

So weird.

Anyways, I was dumbfounded at the simplicity as this was in the middle of other hard-core technical screens from Amazon, Google, Facebook, and eBay for software dev. positions and the interviewer claimed over and over again that this was a programming position and your ability to code was #1. Why didn't they ask me questions to help determine that?

I've since been onsite at MSFT for other reasons and sat down with Technical Evangelists talking about different MSFT platforms. They seemed skilled at programming, and had the background to seem legitimate as engineers. This is what I think Microsoft and other companies really want. The job isn't technical but you need to look credible to the people you are working/speaking with. And above all I think you need to be diehard believers in the product/company.