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    Microsoft Software Development Engineer II Interview Questions

    Interviews at Microsoft

    82 Interview Reviews

    Experience

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    Helpful (3)  

    Software Development Engineer II Interview

    Anonymous Employee in Redmond, WA
    Accepted Offer
    Positive Experience
    Difficult Interview

    Application

    I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in December 2016.

    Interview

    Got referenced by a friend from MS. A recruiter quickly reached me with online screening test. After passing the test got an invite onsite. Had 5 interviews 1h each onsite. All of them were 1:1 with different engineers and managers. Whole process took 2 month, but could be faster, since I went for 2w vacation in the middle.

    Interview Questions

    • Basically all interviewers asked a generic question to design some generic system/service with further drilling down into particular details of the design and implementation of certain algorithms. Some examples are: Dijkstra shortest path; working with hashtables, unit testing.   3 Answers

    Other Interview Reviews for Microsoft

    1. Helpful (1)  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Employee in Bellevue, WA
      Accepted Offer
      Positive Experience
      Average Interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took a week. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bellevue, WA) in September 2014.

      Interview

      External hiring will send you through 5 interviewers usually.
      Internal team switching still sends you through 3 interviewers. For internal transfers:
      -- Find a job posting
      -- Email the hiring manager and get an "informational" about the position
      -- Apply for the position
      -- Set up interviews
      -- if you get an offer, accept/reject and coordinate a start date

      Interview Questions

      • What's something hard you had to deal with?
        Convince me you can get stuff done.
        Other techy questions:
        -- Design classes and interfaces for Chess game
        -- How would you implement the twitter "trending now" feed   3 Answers

      Negotiation

      Internal transfers don't have a negotiation stage

    2.  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate in Redmond, WA
      No Offer
      Positive Experience
      Difficult Interview

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in September 2016.

      Interview

      I was contacted by a recruiter. I had to give an online test consisting of 3 questions. After it got evaluated, I got onsite call. Before that, I got the feedback about my performance in the online test and the entire procedure of the onsite interview was explained. There were 30 candidates being interviewed for the position. On the interview day, the position and the role was explained and it was followed by 4 technical interview rounds of 45 minutes each, which consisted of 1 or 2 data structures and algorithm questions. The interviewers made sure we are working on the most efficient solution, if we were not on right track, they helped us in finding one. 2 days after the interview, I got another call from the recruiter who gave me the feedback of the interviews and asked for my feedback for the interview process. Overall it was a wonderful experience. Best thing I liked was prompt feedback on my performance.

      Interview Questions

      • Generally covers all data structures and Algorithm question types.   3 Answers
      3. Join the Microsoft team
      See Our Latest Jobs

    3. Helpful (1)  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate in Seattle, WA
      No Offer
      Neutral Experience
      Difficult Interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in January 2015.

      Interview

      write algorithm code on the Skype , the question is hard to answer, no offer. Interviewing is time consuming, tiring, and a lot of work. But the reward for doing well is a full time job. Treat the whole process as a game and have a good time.

      Interview Questions

      • Given two sets of strings A and B. Find the
        (A-B) U (B-A) ( U = union ). The answer should be in lexicographical order and A’s elements should appear before B’s

        What was your worst group experience?
        Where do you want to be in 2-5+ years?   Answer Question

    4. Helpful (4)  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Employee in Redmond, WA
      Accepted Offer
      Positive Experience
      Average Interview

      Application

      I applied through other source. The process took 2+ weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in June 2016.

      Interview

      There was a meet and greet at a restaurant in my area Microsoft paid for food and such. Got some emails and LinkedIn profiles soon enough got Phone interview.

      Did well and went straight to the onsite.

      Full day of interviews 4-5 people. The last interview is tentative with the hiring manager based on your performance during the interviews. If you get that far you can reasonably assume you'll get an offer.

      Interview Questions

      • NDA so can't share specifics but you might want to take a look at:

        Trees (n-ary)
        Recursion
        Scalability and Memory Limits
        Algorithms
        Data structures
        Big O

        If you pick C++ KNOW ALL THE STL DATA STRUCTURES. Know their average and worst case complexity for common operations. Be prepared to optimize or discuss trade offs in your design.   Answer Question

      Negotiation

      The offer was very compelling so I chose not to negotiate.

    5.  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Employee in Redmond, WA
      Accepted Offer
      Positive Experience
      Average Interview

      Application

      I applied in-person. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in February 2012.

      Interview

      The company flew me to Seattle for the interview. The process was very well organized. On the day of interview I had 6 interviews. Questions were of moderate complexity. Got an offer in 2 business days, and they pushed me to respond within 2-3 business days.

      Interview Questions

    6.  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate in Redmond, WA
      No Offer
      Positive Experience
      Average Interview

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in June 2017.

      Interview

      The interview was all day at their Redmond campus. I met with 5 different engineers who covered a variety of topics. All the interviews were one-on-one. They were very good about asking questions related to my experience and skills, giving me the opportunity to help steer the interview. In the end the position was not a good match for my skills.

      Interview Questions

      • Technical questions: One, involved writing code to manipulate a string in place. Two, had me write sections of code from a recent project of my choosing.   Answer Question

    7. Helpful (1)  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Employee in Seattle, WA
      Accepted Offer
      Positive Experience
      Difficult Interview

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in November 2013.

      Interview

      This was an internal move, so slightly less stressful than an external application. I still went through 4 hours of loops asking a variety of technical questions and theoretical software design questions.

      Interview Questions

      • Build a list of all words in a novel as well as a count of duplicate words   Answer Question

    8.  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Employee in Redmond, WA
      Accepted Offer
      Neutral Experience
      Average Interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 4+ weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in July 2011.

      Interview

      Applied online. Phone interview first, followed by 6 rounds of onsite interview with technical questions.each round is 45 minutes, they will ask technical questions, average difficulty. Talked with the general manager at last. Got the offer.

      Interview Questions

    9. Helpful (4)  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Interview Candidate in Seattle, WA
      No Offer
      Negative Experience
      Difficult Interview

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in June 2015.

      Interview

      Referred by friend. Took a standard coding question on phone. 2 days on-site interview. 1 day for HR only, 1 day for techniques. 2 Technique interview, 1 lunch, then told me you'd better begone.

      I was very unlucky. I know senior guys in Microsoft tend to ask puzzles, I met a senior like this. Furthermore, he was in VERY BAD MOOD. Because of Friday? My current job is despised like a baby game for him. He kept yelling why you do NOT know this windows system function, why you do NOT answer my question in the way I like. And he explained his work with a stupid pride.

      Overall, background not matching. Completely waste of time. But it is my fault at first place. I should not even apply, as a pure Linux application developer and Windows-hater. More sadly, all the technical questions in the first 5 pages of Glassdoor Microsoft interview are not asked. So it is hard to know how to prepare.

      Interview Questions

      • Write 4 locker functions: acquire_read_lock, acquire_write_lock, release_read_lock, release_write_lock. Use Windows specific helper functions. 1 more brain teasing puzzle.   1 Answer
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