Microsoft Interview Questions & Reviews in Seattle, WA Area
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Updated May 26, 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 570 ratings 
“Average” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 570 ratings
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Software Development Engineer at Microsoft
Posted Feb 27, 2012 — 2 of 2 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 Feb 2012 in Redmond, WA (took 2 months)
My interview was for a MSIT SDE position, so my experience may have been somewhat different from interviews with product groups.
I had my resume given to a recruiter by a classmate who was recently hired by Microsoft. I was given a phone interview in December, and on the phone was told that I would be contacted for an in-person interview at the Redmond Campus.
I flew in on a Thursday, and Microsoft put on a meet-and-greet event for all of the candidates. Free food and open bar, plus a chance to get to meet current Microsoft employees and some of your potential interviewers. It was a lot of fun, and I think helps candidates relax and gain a bit of confidence before interview day.
In January, I received information and scheduling for my on-site interview. Microsoft paid for my flight, hotel, food and other costs. In February I was informed the interview would consist of four 1 hour interviews, at the end of which I would find out whether or not I would be given an offer.
I flew in on a Thursday, and Microsoft put on a meet-and-greet event for all of the candidates that evening. There was free food and open bar, plus a chance to get to meet current Microsoft employees and some of your potential interviewers. It was a lot of fun, and really helped me relax and gain a bit of confidence before the interview day. We were given packets that had our schedule for the next day, stating whether you would interview in the morning or afternoon group.
**The Interview**
We were shuttled to the Microsoft campus, where we had breakfast and a brief meeting with the recruiters before our first interview.
First Interview:
Met with a SDET who had been with Microsoft for over a decade, and had been a PM previously. Very friendly, asked mainly general questions about my experience, what I'm interested in, etc. Then, he asked me to design a subscription service system. After asking a few questions I found that he wanted the tech stack that I would build it on, with justifications for some of the choices. Overall, this interview went very well.
Second Interview:
I met with a PM who asked me some more general questions, asked me about a previous project I had worked with. No technical questions, and this interview also went quite well.
Third Interview:
Meeting with a SDET who asked me about past experience, how I got into software engineering (since I'm an MIS major). He then asked me how I would test the whiteboard, followed by how to test a piece of paper. Finally he asked me to write a method to remove all instances of a certain character from a string. He then modified it asking for how to remove a string of sequential characters from a string. The testing questions threw me a bit initially, but I still felt pretty good by the end of the interview.
Fourth Interview:
Met with an SDE who briefly asked me about my resume, then jumped into questions on OOP. Can you explain OOP to me. What is a class? What is an object? What is multiple inheritance and what are its drawbacks? Does C# or Java allow multiple inheritance? How is this problem solved? Finally she asked me to reverse a linked list, which I completely botched. I had seen it several times before, but just couldn't get the algorithm right. I didn't solve it before our time ran out, and had to leave it unfinished.
At this point, I was feeling pretty nervous about my outcome. We were taken to lunch and when we returned, we were told our results would be given to us shortly. My name was called first, which I assumed meant the worst. The recruited told me, "I hate to do this to you, but we want you to meet with one more member of the team." I had a final interview with another SDE, he was very direct and jumped right into the technical question. I was asked to write a method to find the max int in an unordered binary tree. I nailed this question, which I think got me the offer.
I was later told that they sometimes ask for an additional interview to determine fit within the team, how true this is I don't know.
I then returned to the lobby to wait a bit more to hear my results, and was finally called back and told I was getting an offer.
Final Thoughts / Advice
The process is pretty intense but also very enjoyable. If you can, make sure to attend the event the night before the interview. It helps you gain confidence, because you get to see them as normal people, not some sort of mythical geniuses. Plus, by being sociable, displaying interest and being excited about the opportunity, you can put yourself in a good position with potential interviewers. My surprise fifth interview was with a guy who I had a pretty good conversation with the night before and joked a bit with during the event.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral 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 Feb 27, 2012 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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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 Dec 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 4+ weeks)
Good experience overall. Did not do very well in the third interview that I had on that day. Had a little miscommunication with the interviewer. The question was not hard, shuffle linked list, delete duplicate word in a string, use three type of data structure to do delete and reverse a given string. Overall, it is a positive experience.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
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Project Manager at Microsoft
Posted Feb 29, 2012
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3.0
Average 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 a day)
Phone interview with basic questions about how much experience I had.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Hardware Engineer at Microsoft
Posted Feb 29, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Feb 2012 in Seattle, WA (took 4 months)
I had a 1:1 interview for a first round, and talked to hardware engineers about interest in power electronics and control systems and the interview went well and I was informed 3 weeks after that I made it to final rounds in Seattle. It took about 3 months for them to set up the final rounds and mentioned that they told more people than they should have about final rounds, nevertheless I was selected. I arrived at Seattle thinking I will continue my interview process for the same position in electronics hardware engineering, but I was surprised to see that my 5 interviews were all about mechanical engineering, structural mechanics, and product design which was not made clear to me before starting. Needless to say I was unprepared for that kind of interview and didn't do as well as I hoped.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
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Software Development Engineer at Microsoft
Posted Feb 29, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2010 in Redmond, WA (took a day)
I first had an on-campus interview and the question was to decide whether a string is a palindrome. After a few weeks, I received an email from the recruiter saying that I made to the next step, which was the on-site interview. The on-site interview consists for four rounds, each of which last 45 mins.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
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Software Development Intern at Microsoft
Posted Feb 27, 2012
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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 Feb 2012 in Redmond, WA (took 1 week)
Submitted an online application at the beginning of the year. Was contacted by a university recruiter about a week later. I informed the recruiter that I had an offer with another company that needed a response within a week and the recruiter was able to expedite the process. That same day, I had a phone interview with the recruiter and was later informed that Microsoft would like to fly me out to Seattle for a final round of interviews.
Flew out to Seattle later that week. Microsoft paid for everything including the flight, hotel, and all transportation. The next day I had the interviews. First I met with a recruiter who would be my main contact. The recruiter informed me about what the plan for the day was and tried to get a better idea of what my interests were. Afterwards, I was shuttled to my first of four interviews. These interviews were more technically focused. Often the interviewer would tell me about the company and then ask a few problem solving questions for me to solve. I was able to ask questions to them near the end. The interviews took about 45 minutes each, and they were all with people in the same department I would be interning in. One was over lunch.
Overall, the actual interviews weren't very stressful. The interviewers were easy to talk to and seemed very honest. It was easy to tell that they really liked working at Microsoft and tried their best to sell it. My day concluded with a return trip to the building where I met the recruiter and a wrap-up interview with my recruiter. Microsoft did give the option of staying an extra day to do some sight-seeing, but due to scheduling issues I was not able to do any.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Intern at Microsoft
Posted Feb 27, 2012
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Feb 2012 in Redmond, WA (took a day)
It involved a number of behavorial questions like why do I want to apply only for the developer post and not for a program manager position, my favorite tech product, its faults and suggestions on how one can improve it.
This was followed by a simple technical question - Given a string which can include special characters like phrase,sentence stoppers, reverse individual words in that sting.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
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Software Developer Engineer Intern at Microsoft
Posted Feb 26, 2012
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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 Mar 2011 in Bellevue, WA (took a day)
They put me up in nice hotel but actually switched my hotel at the last minute. There were about 4 45 min interviews with the Xbox connect team which we were randomly assigned to. 3 were technical (one about databases, one about C, one about some basic java algorithms) and 1 was goals/strengths oriented.
As has been stated before, they will really delve deep into anything that you say you "know" so make sure you know it
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Director of Operations at Microsoft
Posted Feb 22, 2012
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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 Feb 2012 in Redmond, WA (took 1+ week)
Initial phone screening took place with the hiring manager. Once through that gate, I was interviewed one on one by three peers of the hiring manager. Two of the interviewers were well prepared and focused on my ability to do the job (based on my experience) and my approach to various elements of the job (budgeting, etc). The third interviewer focused on a job I had several years ago and asked detailed questions about day to day interactions, specific measurements of a particular sub organization under my control, and the level of my technical knowledge regarding the systems I was managing 5 years ago. At Microsoft each interviewer gives a thumbs up thumbs down assessment and one dissenter and undo two positive reviews.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Program Manager at Microsoft
Posted Feb 22, 2012
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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 Seattle, WA (took 3 weeks)
I interviewed on campus followed by a phone interview. Then I was flown out to Seattle for three day event.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
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