Quote Originally Posted by Paul Kimmel
To get hired at Microsoft (at least for the job I was interviewing for), one had to get a unanimous thumbs-up. I got a thumbs-up from everyone who interviewed me but one developer. He said I seemed too much like a manager, which from developers is not a compliment. My secret belief is that he wasn't impressed that I didn't know what string-interning was. (****! Foiled by a fact again.)

The worst part about the string-interning question is that it was a pre-screening question. I'd been asked the same question during the pre-screen interview, and I forgot it when asked during the Redmond interview a week later. (String interning is how strings are stored internally to conserve memory and is why strings are immutable in .NET.) The truth: During the pre-screen I determined that string interning was beyond my control and a truly irrelevant fact except for the .NET compiler writers, so I immediately discarded the factoid.
Well, I have few former colleagues working for Microsoft, but cannot ask them about the interview because, of course, they sign some papers to not reveal the secret of round manhole.
What I know from another one recently applied for. Each of those thumbs-ups is necessary to step to higher level of the interview.
If indeed, at the higher level a real developer can show a "thumb-down", all my respect, I'm throwing my hat.

/keep ahead and don't give up!