Microsoft Program Manager Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – Submitted my resume through my University's career fair, got asked for an on-campus interview about a week later. Interviewed then. About a month later got an email saying I was being flown out to Microsoft for an interview there. Spent three days in Seattle, nearly all expenses paid. Had one full day of interviews with four employees from the Internet Explorer team. Great experience overall, learned a lot about Microsoft and felt well-treated when I was there.

Interview Details – 1.) Met recruiters at university career fair/engineering day.
2.) Applied online through the university careers portal.
3.) Contacted to schedule a phone screen (within about three days). Screen was supposed to last 30 minutes but ended up lasting over an hour. Started with a resume review and behavioral questions. I was also asked two of the famous brain teaser type questions, a handful of testing/coding questions and multiple design questions. Was told I passed about an hour after the screen.
4.) Flown out to Redmond for onsite interview: consisted of five hour-long 1:1 interviews with various Program Managers/Directors and a hiring manager for the team I was interviewing to join. Questions ranged from resume review/experience questions to design questions of both a general nature (e.g. design a new in-car entertainment system) and related to the specific products/technologies that team was working with.

Microsoft's recruiting team works very fast (I had other offer deadlines and they were aggressive in accommodating this; first contact to on-site in Redmond literally only took about two weeks) and they take care of you if you make it out to Redmond: you'll stay in an excellent hotel near the campus and will have a rental car for the duration of your stay (up to three days). Parking, food ($75 per diem), mileage to/from your home airport and tourism expenses will all be reimbursed within reason. They also gave me free passes to the Space Needle and Chihuly Glass museum; you're encouraged to explore when you aren't interviewing.

If I have one (major) problem with the university recruiting process, it's the general lack of transparency and choice: unlike most other companies, you have zero say in which role you're selected for and what product teams you'll interview with and you won't find out more until the day you arrive on their campus (tech recruiting is extremely competitive right now and I have no doubt the campus visit is the biggest part of the sell--they don't want you declining the final round interview before they have a chance to get you on site). The team I was paired to was a pretty terrible fit for my skills and interests (and I was already wary about things I knew about Microsoft's internal culture, so I was very particular about this). I do suspect things would've been better for me if I wasn't working under 2-3 week time constraints due to my other offers.

Reason for Declining – Had other offers and didn't like the team pairing/work environment.

Interview Details – I was contacted through the University recruiter, had a face to face interview. It was 30 min and a mix of Behavioral and Technical, know trees manipulation and runtimes. Then they flew me out there, for an onsite interview. I interviewed with 4 ppl for an hour each, general questions on design.

Interview Details – A group interview with four separate interviews each lasting around forty-five minutes. Didn't get asked any technical questions, mainly design problems and general technology issues. Overall a sort of fun process, especially with the free trip to Seattle, nice hotel, and money for food and sightseeing! Didn't get an offer though.

Interview Details – There are three rounds of interviews now, on-campus -> Skype -> @Redmond. I managed to skip the skype interview. The final one is a 2-3 day event, but only one day for the interview (infamous 3-5 one hour interviews).

Negotiation Details – I negotiated for a little bit more, but keep in mind that any negotiations will be passed on to other departments if you choose to switch.

Interview Details – phone screen with recruiter, mostly behavioral questions and past experiences. in person interview with 7 people including through lunch. typical technical interview, with a mix of design questions (design a park bench, redesign mp3 player for the car), behavioral (how do you handle disgruntled coworker, your biggest failure etc), and some coding/logical puzzles (sort a linked list)

Negotiation Details – not much negotiation. I was fresh out of college.

Interview Details – Microsoft hires you as a vendor. You work hard for months to proove yourself and hope that you will be considered when an FTE spot opens. If you don't get noticed during that time and your manager doesn't get to see your leadership skills, you will have no chance at FTE. It is sort of like a 6 month long interview.
Microsoft's actual FTE interview process is an all day rotation of up to 5 interviews. If you don't make it past 3 (not counting a 4th scheduled on a different day) someone marked you as no hire and you didn't get the job.

Negotiation Details – They make you an offer and it is a lot more than you expected so you just accept.

Interview Details – My resume was taken at Microsoft info session at my campus. I was emailed two weeks later for an interview on campus. The interview questions were related to job. There was no about me question or anything. It was basically behavioral and case questions. The interviewer was fine and friendly.

Interview Details – On campus hiring. I got the interview 2 days after, and was interviewed 2 weeks later. I stated that I wanted to apply for program manager, and was asked in which department I would like to work at. According to that, he asked me front end questions. Specifically I focused on UI, so he asked me UI questions about previous projects I've been working on.