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Microsoft Interview Experiences
3935 interview stories from candidates at 857 companies: how each round went, what was asked and how it ended. Every company page links to practice questions in the same style.
- 3935
- Experiences
- 857
- Companies
- 532
- Offers
55 results
- LeetCode Rounds Then a RAG System DesignMicrosoft · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Jun 2026
Round 1 The first round was a classic array-processing problem: LeetCode 56 (Merge Intervals). Overall it wasn't too hard — mostly testing fundamentals. The core idea is to sort by interval start, then walk through and merge the overlapping ranges. What actually separates candidates is how "Pythonic" the code is and how you handle edge cases — things like sorting elegantly with a lambda, or handl…
- Microsoft Product Manager recruiter screen, hiring manager, and big-data silenceMicrosoft · Product Manager · Jun 2026No response
After I applied, I was contacted for an initial screen. The recruiter part felt a little unstructured but not off-putting, more conversational than scripted. I was told that multiple candidates were being interviewed for the role, which made the process feel uphill from the start. I reached a hiring-manager round and focused mostly on big-data topics. Additional rounds were supposed to follow, bu…
- Microsoft Software Engineer interview experienceMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jun 2026
I took a LeetCode-style test with three problems, then went through three interviews with different managers. Each manager interview ran for about an hour and combined a coding problem with behavioral questions. The format made it clear they were weighing both problem solving and how I described my thinking and experience. The test came first, and each manager conversation added a human layer tha…
- Microsoft Software Engineer Interview Experience: A demanding opening testMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2026
Before I could speak with a recruiter, I had to clear a technical test. It was challenging enough to feel like a real filter and about what I expected from Microsoft. Once I passed that hurdle, the rest of the process moved forward, but I did not receive an offer. The test set the tone immediately, and the bar felt consistent with Microsoft's reputation. My main takeaway was that proving I could…
- Microsoft Software Engineer Interview Experience: LRU cache and C++ vector implementationMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Take-home Project · Jun 2026
My take home coding work and later interviews were more system oriented than quick algorithm exercises. I worked on two DSA problems: an LRU cache with a higher level design angle, and a vector related implementation using arrays, pointer arithmetic, and heap allocation in C++. The interviewers were friendly and fun to talk with, which made it easier to think out loud during implementation. The s…
- Microsoft Software Engineer interview: passed OA then declineMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jun 2026Rejected
My process started with an OA for a role that had the same title but a different job code. I fully passed both OA questions, but there were still more rounds afterward. The first interview was 45 minutes, followed by a loop with three separate 45-minute rounds on different days. Even though I felt prepared and thought I had done well, the process ended without an offer. I waited for several month…
- Microsoft Software Engineer Interview: Two SDE2 online assessment problemsMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jun 2026
I started with an online assessment for a Software Development Engineer 2 role. It had two DSA questions, one medium and one harder. I got full marks on every test case for the medium problem. I came close on the hard one, but it was not perfect. After the OA, I waited and tried to work out whether I might get a callback. I had no further detail from the process; the assessment result was the onl…
- Cold Applied from Finance, Extra System Design Round Led to an OfferMicrosoft · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Apr 2026Offer
I come from finance and wanted to move into AI and LLM work. For a few months I took on projects with early-stage startups, building RAG systems and AI-native products on the side. I want to stress one thing, because I didn't really believe it myself before: you can switch fields even in the middle of a career, with no big tech background. I had no referral either and just applied cold. What got…
- Four Rounds on the Bing Team, No OfferMicrosoft · Machine Learning Engineer · Onsite · Apr 2026Rejected
I applied to several MAI positions on the site, and then a Bing team doing image search got back to me and said they wanted to schedule an interview. First, let me complain about the HR — from the email address, it's clearly outsourced, and they never reply. For example, I asked what kind of interview this was, what it would cover, how many rounds — no idea at all. They'd only show up two or thre…
- Four Rounds, Best Vibe I Had All YearMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Onsite · Apr 2026
Four rounds, overall a really relaxed vibe. Posting my Microsoft interview experience to give back to the forum. Bottom line up front: this was the most comfortable-feeling interview I had all year. The interviewers were pretty much all friendly, nobody tried to trip me up on purpose, and when I got stuck they'd proactively throw me a rope. The questions were medium difficulty, but they cared a l…
- Four-Month Loop, Hard OA, Senior OfferMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Apr 2026Offer
I first tried to break into big tech back in 2022. I had no idea how hiring worked there and had never even heard of LeetCode, so it went about as badly as you'd expect. After two Google attempts and one at Amazon, I finally have a Senior offer from Microsoft, and honestly it feels great. The 2022 tries (Google and Amazon) came before I knew anything. It was only in 2024 that I stopped, wrote a s…
- LLD in the Screening Round, Top-K Design in the Behavioral Round, OfferMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Onsite · Apr 2026Offer
Update: I got an offer for a Microsoft L61 role after about 5 months of prepping and interviewing. My background is in trading platforms. I built strategies for traders and also did some infra work where latency mattered a lot. I wanted to move to big tech to work on products at scale, to have a stronger name on my resume, and of course for the better pay :) For prep I did the usual. LeetCode for…
- Painter's Partition Screen, Same-Day Two-Round Loop, Then the AA RoundMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Apr 2026
I applied for a Senior Software Engineer opening through the careers portal. About a week later a recruiter phoned to set up a technical screen, and the screen itself took place a week after that. This was my first ever Microsoft interview, so I was thrilled and nervous in equal measure. Technical Screen round The screen was a single coding problem, labelled LeetCode easy. I didn't recognize it a…
- Online Assessment with a Balanced-Window and Monotonic-Stack ProblemMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Mar 2026
Q1 — problem You're given a permutation p of length n. For each k (1 ≤ k ≤ n), determine whether there's a contiguous subarray that is exactly a permutation of the numbers 1 through k (order doesn't matter). If one exists, call k "balanced." The final output is a length-n binary string, where the k-th digit says whether k is balanced. Q1 — approach The key isn't to enumerate subarrays — it's to f…
- Research Intern Video Screen That Was Pure LeetCodeMicrosoft · Machine Learning Engineer · Intern · Technical Screen · Feb 2026
Background: currently a student at CMU. Process: I applied online through a mass application, and about two weeks later I got an interview invitation. It was a video interview. What the interview was like: the interviewer was an MLE on the team who had been working for a few years. He was really nice and gave me quite a few hints along the way. Even though this was a research intern role, the int…
- Three Back-to-Back Interviews After the OAMicrosoft · Data Scientist · Onsite · Feb 2026Offer
The OA was an hour long with two questions, pretty simple. Three days after that I got an interview invite. Three interviews back to back, three hours total, all with very senior people interviewing. The first interviewer worked on software/systems and had me write a problem, roughly medium difficulty. Org chart → Tree. Top-down, level by level → BFS. "Show the entire layer first" → Queue. The se…
- Three Back-to-Back Virtual Onsites in One DayMicrosoft · Applied Scientist · Intern · Onsite · Feb 2026Offer
Position: Applied Science: PhD Internship Opportunities - Redmond HR emailed to invite me to interview, no OA. VO1 (02/04): a 30 minute simple chat, talked about past projects, asked about some details. Then scheduled three back-to-back VOs on the same day (02/19), each 45 minutes, with a 15 minute break between adjacent interviews. VO2: an applied scientist, also asked about technical details of…
- OA, Then Three Back-to-Back Rounds, Offer a Month LaterMicrosoft · Data Scientist · Intern · Onsite · Jan 2026Offer
Timeline 10/13: HackerRank OA — one LeetCode problem and one data-processing problem 11/03: 3 rounds, back-to-back interviews 12/03: offer Background: Statistics PhD, resume roughly 80% LLM-related research, no conference publications at the time of the interview (a few projects were finished and submitted), no industry experience. Round 1: the interviewer was a senior guy. 30 minutes of behavior…
- Sharding Embeddings and Language-Model OutputsMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jan 2026
The author describes a Microsoft AI infrastructure virtual-onsite discussion centered on distributing large embedding tables and language-model output layers across GPUs. The interview compared splitting by vocabulary entries with splitting by hidden dimensions, asking how each choice affects memory use, communication, and connections to later computation. Follow-ups examined routing token lookup…
- Straight to Onsite After the OA, Offer Through Pattern PracticeMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Onsite · Jan 2026Offer
I just finished the Microsoft interview loop and ended up with an offer, so I'm writing down what worked best for me. I'm a software engineer, mostly backend work and distributed services, though never at a big tech company. The process looked a lot like what other companies do, with one difference: there was no recruiter screen. After the online assessment I was sent straight to the onsite. That…
- A Level 64 Offer That Still Fell ShortMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Senior+ · Onsite · Dec 2025Offer
I've always just been a lurker here, never able to see anything useful. Since I'm interviewing right now, I figured I'd post this — hopefully it helps others too. Background: I work at Amazon (aka "the banana factory"), YOE 6+. WA. Let me give the result up front: I applied as senior and got a level 64 offer. After two rounds of negotiation, total comp went from 26 to 30 (215 base + 54/2 sign-on…
- HackerRank OA, Then a Grilling AA Round and a Data Center DesignMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Onsite · Dec 2025Offer
The process started with a HackerRank online assessment containing 2 questions. Both were on the harder side, but I got through them, and a couple of days later I heard I was moving on to the later rounds. Coding: I practiced the most frequently asked Microsoft coding questions, and most of what came up was either straight from that list or a close variation. System Design: I worked through the s…
- Three Back-to-Back Rounds, Offer a Month LaterMicrosoft · Data Scientist · New Grad · Onsite · Nov 2025Offer
Timeline 10/13: HackerRank OA — one LeetCode problem, one data-processing problem 11/03: 3 rounds, back-to-back interviews 12/03: Offer Background: Statistics PhD, resume was 80% large-language-model-related research, no conference publications at the time of interviewing (a few projects were finished and being submitted), no industry experience. Round 1: the interviewer gave me 30 min of behavio…
- Four Weeks of Email Chaos, Then the Position Was FilledMicrosoft · Data Scientist · Other · Oct 2025Rejected
Sharing a bizarre experience today: the Microsoft interviewer couldn't receive Gmail emails. I got notified four weeks ago for a coding screen round. I needed to provide 5 interview windows, so I replied, and then... nothing. I waited three days, followed up, and the interviewer said she never received my last email — checked her spam folder too, nothing there. But this one she got. So I gave new…
- Online Assessment, Knapsack DP Timeout Turned Binary SearchMicrosoft · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Aug 2025
I think I probably failed. Two problems in 90 minutes, and right after layoffs they're still running a hiring event, which is honestly a dark joke. The role is general level 62. My first problem was labeled medium difficulty, and the second was said to be harder. But I used knapsack DP for the first problem and it timed out... I ended up rewriting it as binary search right at the wire. They claim…
