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Microsoft Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews

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7 Interviews*

* Posted anonymously by interview candidates (updated Nov 1, 2009)

Difficulty Rating [?]
“Average”
3.3
Interview Experience [?]
Positive 71%
Neutral 14%
Negative 14%

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1 - 7 of 7 Microsoft Interviews Sort by  

Software Engineer at Microsoft

Posted Nov 1, 2009

4.0
Difficult Interview
Overall Positive Experience Received and Declined Offer

Interviewed Jul 2007 in Redmond, WA (took 2 days)

Incredibly nice and positive people. Flexible with my schedule. Gave credence to my requirements. Worked with my handicap. They asked questions from basic algorithms to asynchronous algorithms. The office space seemed pleasant to work in. The team consisted of a couple of PhDs and others with lots of industry experience, including non-Microsoft technologies which gives a broader perspective on software development.

Interview Questions

Can you describe a few ways of improving the performance of the given online service?

Reason for Declining

Wasn't the right time in my life to make the change.

Other Details

I applied In-Person and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?  
Yes | No
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Software Engineer at Microsoft

Posted May 13, 2009

2.0
Easy Interview
Overall Positive Experience Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Apr 2008 (took a day)

I was interviewed by 4 people, and the questions were not hard, including replacing a character in a string, validating a BST, etc. I made a mistake which shouldn't have happened there, but that interviewer was apparently not that smart. After I made that mistake he was skeptical on all what I wrote on the board, but the code was just copied from the textbook.

Interview Questions

Replace a character in a string with another one, or another two

Other Details

The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?  
Yes | No
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Software Engineer at Microsoft

Posted May 8, 2009

3.0
Average Interview
Overall Positive Experience Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Apr 2009 (took 2 weeks)

Overall, the interview process was a positive and learning experience.

Interview Questions

Implement the memcpy function
Helpful Interview?  
Yes | No
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Software Engineer at Microsoftstudent candidate

Posted May 5, 2009

4.0
Difficult Interview
Overall Negative Experience Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Mar 2008 in Redmond, WA (took a day)

I got an interview along with a bunch of other of my comp sci peers while Microsoft was at a University here in MD. The interviewer was very formal, but somewhat non personable. I was two questions, one of which I could not answer. I knew the interview was bust after that, so I asked him about R&D for fun.

Interview Questions

How would you calculate a pixle on a monitor using a singular matrix in memory and change the color

Other Details

I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.

Helpful Interview?  
Yes | No
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Software Engineer at Microsoftstudent candidate

Posted May 3, 2009

3.0
Average Interview
Overall Positive Experience Received and Declined Offer

Interviewed Apr 2009 in Redmond, WA (took 2 weeks)

They treat their interviewees very well. They will put in a nice hotel, give you a rental, and pay your expenses for you to spend an extra day and night in the area to get to know it and explore and have fun. The interview itself lasts a fair part of the day and involves talking to several engineers. The questions are pretty standard algorithms and problem solving questions. Almost all of them asked me to write code. Even lunch was an interview with the topic about facing difficulties/working in teams/interacting with others and so on.

 I was very impressed with the work, offer, and suggested flexibility.

Interview Questions

How to write an evaluator for a string like "(1+3 * ( 5 / 4)) and get a numeric result.

Reason for Declining

I had another I really liked on the East Coast. It was a tough tough choice.

Other Details

I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?  
Yes | No
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Software Engineer at Microsoftstudent candidate

Posted Apr 29, 2009

4.0
Difficult Interview
Overall Positive Experience Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Oct 2008 in Redmond, WA (took 3 weeks)

I applied through on campus Job Fair. Microsoft contacted me online asking for an on-site interview. The interview itself took about 30 minutes. Questions were more about to see your problem solving skills and analytic approach than technical skills. Interviewer was a project manager. At the end of the interview, it took three weeks to be notified that there won't be any offer. Interviewer was nice and polite. He knew the stuff.

Interview Questions

How many unique paths are there from B-L point to the T-R point of a chess table? What would be your approach to calculate this?
Write a code for finding a certain element in an unsorted array assuming element definitely exists. How can we improve the efficiency?

Other Details

I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?  
Yes | No
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Software Engineer at Microsoft

Posted Apr 28, 20090 of 1 people found this helpful

3.0
Average Interview
Overall Neutral Experience Received and Declined Offer

Interviewed Jan 2007 (took 1 week)

8 interviews (4 with 2 different teams)

Interview Questions

Count bits in a byte.

Other Details

I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?  
Yes | No
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1 - 7 of 7 Microsoft Interviews
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Microsoft Overview (MSFT )
Web
www.microsoft.com
Industries
Size
5000+ Employees, $60B+ Revenue
HQ
Redmond, WA
Competitors



The difficulty rating is the average interview difficulty rating across all interview candidates.

The interview experience is the percentage of all interview candidates that said their interview experience was positive, neutral, or negative.

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