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    Microsoft Software Development Engineer II Interview Questions

    Updated Apr 4, 2018
    80 Interview Reviews

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    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

    Other Interview Reviews for Microsoft

    1. Helpful (2)  

      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.   2 Answers

    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.   1 Answer
      3. Join the Microsoft team
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    3. Helpful (3)  

      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.

    4.  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

      Anonymous Employee
      Accepted Offer
      Positive Experience
      Average Interview

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft in January 2016.

      Interview

      Two phone interviews. One was technical. Flew out for on-site (Redmond). The campus is beautiful. The recruiter was professional. The team was friendly. I really had to ask a lot of questions to get a REAL understanding of the project. That's my only complaint of the interview. The accommodations are nice and the interview day wasn't as intense as other companies. I think moving around between offices helps relieve some stress between sessions.

      All questions are technical, although a couple of the interviewers did ask non-tech (about my resume). The lunch interview was strange, definitely not just a sit-and-eat with light conversation.

      Interview Questions

    5. Helpful (5)  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

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

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4+ weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in December 2015.

      Interview

      Took online tech screening and was invited to recruiting event. There were four technical rounds. The recruiters are amazing and make sure you have a very good experience interviewing at Microsoft. Interviewers were very friendly and helpful.

      Interview Questions

      • NDA. Questions were mostly on arrays and trees. Not very difficult.   Answer Question

      Negotiation

      Do not accept without negotiations. I was able to get a lot more money than they initially offered.

    6.  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

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

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in July 2015.

      Interview

      Pretty typical of what else is on here, but with a different twist. Met with 3 engineers and then the final interviewer, the as appropriate is what they called it. Other questions were around linked list traversal and working with arrays and indexes.

      Interview Questions

      • Given a stream a of ints, calculate the average of the 10 most recent values   Answer Question

    7. 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

    8. Helpful (7)  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

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

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in May 2015.

      Interview

      This was an internal interview process, so it started with an informational with the hiring manager (~1hr discussion around what the team does, what my current responsibilities were, and why I was interested in the position). Next, there were 3 technical interviews, all about an hour long. Finally, there was a interview with the Engineering Director for that group - that lasted 1.5 hours, and we discussed why I thought I would be a good fit for that team.

      Interview Questions

      • Imagine a random distribution of water droplets spread across the whiteboard, design an algorithm to create the maximal enclosed area by connecting the water droplets with lines.   1 Answer

    9. Helpful (2)  

      Software Development Engineer II Interview

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

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. The process took 8 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in April 2015.

      Interview

      The interview process took 8 weeks. I was referred by a friend and was contacted by an engineering manager first. We set up a phone screening for the week after. Then two weeks went by and then I was contacted by a recruiter. She wanted to setup a phone screening but then after a few weeks she told me the hiring manager wanted to go to on-site after hearing about my phone screening. Some how I got lost in the flow of things. They flew me out the next week, very short deadline and notice, for four interviews. After my fourth interview they tacked on a fifth. The last was with the hiring manager. He told me normally when he meets recruits it is a good thing so I should not worry, however he did not want to give out an offer yet. He wanted to see where to put me. He said I was good but not what he normally hirers, i.e. not a new grad or experienced professional. I was changing from teaching in Academia for five years. After I got back on Tuesday, I was informed on Wednesday night, 3 hour time difference, that my recruiter received my feedback and wanted to schedule a time to talk the next day. We talked on Thursday where she gave me an offer for SDEII. Very exciting. I did negotiate but not on the yearly salary or bonuses as they were very competitive and above what I was expecting.

      Interview Questions

      • I will abide by the NDA so I will not disclose the actual questions. I can say that I was asked some fairly tough questions. One was an actual problem they were asked to do, he should me the design requirements. The last of the four said she normally does not ask this difficult of a question but for me she would. It was tough. I will say study your basic data structures and algorithms like sorting, searching, trees, recursion, and design patterns.   Answer Question
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