Microsoft Interview Questions & Reviews in Redmond, WA
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Updated Feb 14, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
Ratings are reflective of location and job title.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 299 ratings 
“Difficult” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 299 ratings
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Hardware Engineer Intern at Microsoft
Posted Dec 21, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2011 in Redmond, WA (took 2 months)
I applied online through my career site, and also went to a resume building session and dropped off my resume, never expecting to get an interview.
I flew to Seattle, and everything was taken care of. Hotel, rental car, plane ticket. The first day you're there, you are able to explore Seattle. You are also invited to a recruiting event where they rented out a bowling place with OPEN BAR for the applicants to relax and get to know their recruiters. The applicant pool there was quite intimidating. Everyone is from the top engineering schools in the US. MIT, Stanford, UChicago, Maryland, UCLA Berkley, GA Tech just to name a few. And here I am from the University of Florida(lol). I was able to meet some program managers and talk to them about what they do.The next morning we were swept away in a MS shuttle into the interviewing room.
The interviews consisted of four 1:1 interviews for full time and intern positions. All of my interviews were very technical. My first interview was with a PCB designer for windows phone, and coincidentally my current internship consisted of me doing PCB design for high frequency applications. He asked me a lot of questions pertaining to my work, and will really make you think.
Ironically, my second interviewer was a lead designer for PC hardware, which I talked to the night before at the intern event. We had a nice conversation, which then led into the technical question. It was primarily based on Microprocessor applications, and I was able to work it out even though I had dropped the class that semester.
My third interview was with the Lead Xbox Designer, who had about 20 years of experience under his belt. Really nice guy, but this time the interview didn't go as well. He asked me a lot about pcb design, signal integrity, and pcb design. I couldn't get the signal integrity question right, but he was able to help me work through it by applying easy to understand analogies and concepts. I felt pretty bad about this interview but kept my chin up.
My last interview was with another MS employee who was exceptionally bright in circuit design and programming. This guy grilled me so bad in circuit design. The interview consisted of two problems consisted of circuit analysis, and op amp transfer function derivation. I struggled a lot on these questions and felt that I bombed this last interview.
I was pretty depressed after the interview as I felt it went horrible. After all the interviews, we were told to hang out in the library and eat lunch while the interviewers deliberated. One by one, the full time applicants were pulled inside the office to be given their results. Finally, the interns were pulled one by one. I was pulled in last, and was not feeling so confident, because of the 12 applicants that were there, only one had been given a solid "yes". Two other applicants were given "maybes". I was the last one to be pulled in, and was extended an offer, which I accepted on the spot.
P.S. - To be honest, I answered a lot of questions wrong. But it's important to voice how you work our your problems aloud and show them what you're thinking. Also, there was no lack of talent there in the applicant pool. But what I did notice was that some applicants were lacking social skills. I do not think that I had the most intellectual prowess of the group, but I believe that my prior work experience and social skills were able to boost my chances in the deliberation.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
There is no negotiation, but trust me, what they pay interns is more than what they pay most starting EE salaries with a BS degree. You will NOT be disappointed by their offer. They give you GREAT benefits along with an enormous intern salary. ;)
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
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Software Development Engineer Intern at Microsoft
Posted Dec 12, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2010 in Redmond, WA (took 2 months)
Went to an on campus screening section, then got an offer to fly down to Redmond for the interview. Since it's a big recruiting event for the on site interview, we had a big party (hosted and paid for by MS) the night before the interview at a bowling place with unlimited free food and (alcoholic) drinks. Did 4-5 back-to-back 1:1 interviews with the hiring managers and met with the recruiter that afternoon and was told that I received an offer.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
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Program Manager Intern at Microsoft
Posted Dec 10, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Redmond, WA (took 4+ weeks)
I submitted my Resume at a Career Fair and got contacted by a recruiter to do a phone screen. That was all business as usual. I then got invited out to the Microsoft campus to do a series of interviews (I was told between 3-5 for intern interviews). All expenses paid, etc.
Overall pretty solid. Third interview was the hardest and I think is the one that prevented me from getting an offer.
Fourth interview asked me a lot of questions related to vision/the future which I thought was interesting. Unfortunately, she only gave me a little over half the time of a regular interview because she had to go to a meeting or something. Unfortunate and frustrating because I felt rushed and don't think I was able to fully make up my lackluster performance from the third interview.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
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Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) at Microsoft
Posted Dec 10, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Redmond, WA (took 2 weeks)
My resume was forwarded to this group through a friend. The recruiter got in touch to schedule a phone screen. They scheduled an additional one.
First one focused on a string manipulation question and basic computer science, and OO concepts (stuff like threading basics, polymorphism). Also asked about work experience.
Second one focused a lot more on my understanding of memory allocation - had to point out challenges/errors on a given custom memory allocator. And another question was an array-of-integers-related question.
Was called onsite a week later. Had 5 rounds of interviews.
Questions based on a mix of understanding of Computer science concepts—such as multi-threading, client-server behavior, http basics, scalability etc—and algorithms/coding as well as testing ability.
Some of the coding related questions: reversal of sentence, sorting an array based on its modulo 'k' value, a 2-D array sorting related question.
I got the offer a week later and accepted it.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
Wasn't able to negotiate but the offer was to my expectations.
Advice: don't discuss salary prior to the interview process. Politely decline to set expectations as much as possible.
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Background Check.
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Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) at Microsoft
Posted Dec 2, 2011
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5.0
Very Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2010 in Redmond, WA (took 2 days)
I was initially contacted by an MS recruiter who had found articles on my blog related to a skills they were currently hiring from.
I had an initial phone screen with the recruiter, followed by a phone interview with a test manager a few days later. The phone screen consisted of basic coding tests done via live meeting.
A few weeks later I visited the Redmond campus for a series of in-person interviews with several other test engineers. The interview series consisted of 4 - 5 in-person interviews, each with a single test engineer, each consisting of either coding on a whiteboard or testing applications. The interviews progressed in difficulty as the day went on.
Interview Questions
Given the signature above, implement the simplest method that returns the results of the following arguments:
1. “3+5” (8)
2. “10+2-8” (4)
3. “5+10*3” (35)
4. “3+5--6" (14)
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
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Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Nov 24, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Redmond, WA (took 2 weeks)
Gave my resume to one of the university recruiters who was on campus and got a phone interview scheduled in the next couple of weeks. The interview was more of resume and basic design questions, and at the end of the interview offered me to come onsite for a whole day of interviews for Fulltime PM role.
Arrived in seattle a week later and drove to redmond, very nice treatment from MS which is very obvious. The next day interview was pretty hard, a lot of complex design questions for eg: design a restaurant order taking application, design an alarm clock near airport and blog system). I really dont know whats right or wrong and was kinda upset with the reactions.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
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Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) II at Microsoft
Posted Nov 18, 2011 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Redmond, WA (took 4+ weeks)
I had prior experience working as a contractor at Microsoft so I was familiar work environment. This interview was for Windows Phone Group. One of my colleague who work for MS had forwarded my resume to this opening. I was having a really nice job at one of the fortune 100 company and had solid experience with some 4 of the leading companies in the field. So my profile was good in that sense, but didnt see any mercy while doing 1:1 interviewing for the post. Initial phone interview asked about programming and testing questions. Not very difficult. Then followed by a one day interview which started at 10 am and lasted at around 5.30 pm. First one was one 1:1 hr session(just explained what I will be doing thru the day and what all i look from the job ) . Five 1:1 technical sessions , Initial ones where easy , but as soon as they realize that you are able to answer the initial rounds, the other ones will go tougher and tougher till you break.
So you really dont have much idea of how you are doing, but it seems after four rounds you could be relatively safe since the questions are hard to crack questions by then and they also know about that. There is a lunch break that too filled with some technical and some personal talks. By evening you will get exhausted, so keep your energy levels really up till the end. They will give you indications about the result. The last person I met was a higher level manager and he told me ,that they liked me and that I had done well and HR will get back to you. After two days I got the offer. Dont go without enough preparation, for sure its difficult to crack without proper study , prepare well , at least it will give a nice experience . Good thing is even if you don't get its a nice experience.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
I was able to negotiate, but not much. Already having a nice job so I had no other choice than to negotiate. Since I want to have a fair deal for my career change.
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Background Check.
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Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) at Microsoft
Posted Nov 16, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Redmond, WA (took a day)
As this was my first big interview, my experience felt like a whirlwind.
I was notified a week to the day before I was to interview at Microsoft's Redmond's Campus. I made it past the first on-campus interview two weeks prior. I was asked to implement a C function that searches a string within a source string( "strstr()" ). I didn't have much time to review, needless to say. I flew into Seattle a day before the interview. That night, there was an nice networking event where we got to meet with our recruiters and even talk with some of the interviewers.
The interview process was pretty extensive. I had 4 interviews each 45 minutes long, with 15 minute breaks and between each. The questions ranged from implementing basic data structures on a white board (I was asked to make a Linked List) and some logic problems in my last interview. They even asked me the classic Fizz Buzz function to implement (Google it, or Bing it). I was also asked some basic relational database questions regarding foreign keys and primary keys. I felt like I was unprepared and consequently psyched myself out somewhat.
After the interview, a reviewer will notify you if you have a job offer or not. They'll also go over how you did and what you could improve on your resume or skill set. They did a wonderful job and were incredibly professional about everything throughout the process.
Here are some tips: Get some sleep. Try to relax during the interview. Don't over optimize your code until after you're done ( I did this on at least two occasions and overlooked some obvious things in my code because I was nervous). Be comfortable with writing at least 2 languages on a white board, one system (C), one object-oriented(Java, C++, C#). Review your database concepts too if you're familar with them. Finally, and most importantly, be yourself. They're more interested in how you think and approach a problem.
Hope this helped some soon-to-be college graduates out there! Good Luck
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
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Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) at Microsoft
Posted Nov 15, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Redmond, WA (took a day)
I got a direct on-site interview call for an SDET position with the Windows team. Interviews were fairly standard - there was a lot of emphasis on testing the code. The coding questions were fairly straightforward, and I thought I did a good job. However I did not get an offer.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
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Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) at Microsoft
Posted Nov 8, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 in Redmond, WA (took 3 weeks)
Amazing interview process and very quick. I had a phone interview followed by an onsite interview. The company makes sure you really feel the whole experience. I interviewed for IEB SDET. Four interviewers, all extremely kind and friendly. Really chill company and seems to be moving in the right direction. Terrific experience.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, an IQ/Intelligence Test and a Skills Test.
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