Microsoft Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – Got an email inviting me to the first round of the interviews after college career expo. The first round was easy as long as you know your resume and show your ability of being a software developer. After about 3 weeks, they invited me to the final round on-site interview. The questions were not difficult but you have to pay attention to details.

Interview Details – Had an on campus interview where the interviewer asked some questions about a couple of things on my resume as well as the most challenging technical problem I've faced and how I solved it. I was not asked any coding questions.

Two months went by before I heard anything back from Microsoft and I was led to believe that I had been rejected since several candidates had received an invitation to interview onsite in Redmond, WA. Eventually, my recruiter told me that I had been selected to interview for an SDET role although he didn't tell me on which team (this is only communicated to you on the day of the interview). From this point on, it took another month-and-a-half or so to schedule the onsite interview in Redmond.

From this point on though, the process was smooth sailing and I received an e-mail asking to confirm travel details. The trip and itinerary was booked swiftly. On the day of the interview, I met with the onsite recruiter who told me which team I would be interviewing for as well as answered some soft/HR-type questions. I was given some suggestions/advice from the recruiter on how to approach the technical portion of the interview.

I had a day worth of onsite interviews with mostly technical questions. We went a bit overtime although I found that each interviewer was friendly and very proud of the work they were doing. They were also more than happy to answer any questions that I had as well as give feedback on my performance on the interview. The format of the interviews was a brief introduction followed by two technical questions. The first was generally on how to test a particular piece of software and the second was usually a whiteboard coding question.

After 5 interviews, I met the Hiring Manager who I feel was evaluating my 'fit' for the organization. The questions here were a mixture of technical/non-technical ones.

ADVICE:
- Although it has probably been stated elsewhere, I cannot stress the importance of knowing the following things:
    - Data Structures (Stacks, Queues, Trees, Heaps, Linked Lists, Hash Tables, etc.) as well as how the various operations on those data structures work
    - Being Able to Reason Time Complexity in code that you've written/seen (especially operations on data structures)
    - Coding on a whiteboard/without a debugger
- I would also suggest going on the internet and getting some practice with coding problems (TopCoder, CodeKata, HackerRank, Leetcode, etc. etc. etc.)

Negotiation Details – No negotiation.

Interview Details – Interview started off with a simple 1 to 1 conversation. Nothing to technical, they just wanted to determine if I was worth a 2nd round of interviews.
During the 2nd round of interviews, I was interviewed by 2 people. The first was good and friendly, but the second was some Asia person who barely spoke English. I got confused with what he was saying, he was confused by my questions, and it didn't end very well.

Interview Details – I applied through my university's college recruiting website earlier this semester. Two weeks after I applied, I received an email invitation to a first round interview. My phone interview lasted approximately 45 minutes and was a combination of behavioral and case questions. The questions were a bit difficult but may have been easier to answer if I had had more experience with interviewing.

Interview Details – Eight calls over six weeks with recruiter and hiring manager. One day of interviews with six people in Redmond. Offer made same day.

Negotiation Details – Negotiated salary up a little and stock up a little. NOTE - decline the relocation - tax implications are so bad and fees are so padded you are actually better off paying for it yourself.

Interview Details – Two HR phone screens and then phone interview with hiring manager. Seemed smart and capable but out of his depth as manager of the group. I know the (correct) answers that I gave that got me the boot. Microsoft, like a lot of big companies whereby ambition runs rampant, sometimes gives jobs to smart talented people that aren't a good fit. Just because you know a lot about managing SDEs does NOT mean you know a lot about managing contract manufacturers. Yes, both are technical and have some engineering elements but that's not enough. I interviewed at Apple for the same job and absolutely NAILED it because the hiring manager had the knowledge and experience to run the group; IOW, game recognized game ;).

Interview Details – I communicated via email with an interview scheduler to fly out to Redmond. I had already passed the first round at an on-campus interview, so the on-site interview was scheduled within a couple of weeks.

For the actual interview day, it started with the HR rep asking basic questions to make sure you fit the position at all, and then she directed me to my first interviewer. The interviewers would then take you to the next one in your schedule, and they would talk about you to each other in between. FYI, if you're honest to your HR rep about any concerns you might have about the position, the other interviewers will see them and do their best to persuade you otherwise.

The interview questions were not as bad as I worried - the questions were very reasonable and could definitely be done in the interview time. There were some things that they asked me about that I freely admitted to not knowing, and then they'd give me a question about it and see if I could figure things out without the prior knowledge. I definitely got the impression that for fresh out of college hires, they don't expect comprehensive knowledge of anything, just raw talent and an ability to think through things. Just be relaxed and enthusiastic and connect to the interviewers.

The interviewers were all very friendly and genuinely enthusiastic about their work, and by the last interview they were very clear that they liked me. I received the offer the next day.

Negotiation Details – Offer was very generous and well above my expectations. I did not feel like I had leverage to improve upon an already amazing offer.

Interview Details – I applied through a posting on the university career website. In 2 weeks, I received an e-mail for an invitation to a phone interview from a Microsoft recruiter. I also received a document asking me to rate my preference for different marketing MBA internship positions within various departments inside Microsoft. The dcument was really long and very detailed in explaining each role. Before the interview, the interviewer informed me that it would be a typical marketing interview. However, it was the most unexpected type of marketing interview afterall. During 1 hour of interview, the interviewer kept grilling me on the core marketing concepts with supplying examples. I expected more of a behavioral type interview. The interviewer never asked me anything on my previous jobs or had any questions about my resume.

Interview Details – I was working in Pakistan and I heard Microsoft was recruiting from Pakistan. After my application I heard back from the recruiter who asked general questions about why I want to join Microsoft. After that I scheduled for a phone screen. The questions were all technical and not too tough. After that I was called for onsite interview. I had three interviews, and got the impression that I was rejected. I was surprised to hear back from the recruiter with an offer. Didn't really have leverage to negotiate.