Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Microsoft with 4 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 50% positive. To compare, the company-average is 68.2% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
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I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Vancouver, BC) in Oct 2024
Interview
Basic system design questions, not too hard - focus was on distributed systems and cloud based technology solutions. The interview process was pretty straightforward, started with a behavioural interview and then on to the tech focused one with the team lead
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft in Jul 2024
Interview
Virtual coding questions. The standard big tech interview. Talked with HR. Then rest was online. Multiple rounds to get the results back and then the next round was final. It was a positive experience.
Similar to other opinions here, my experience was a long and painful process of 6 interviews with different people from the company. After the initial call from the recruiter, you do a short leetcode style problem as screening. After that, they schedule 4 more interviews in the same week without being very clear about what these interviews will be about. I don't really understand why they act so mysterious about these interviews, but for people applying in my case all 4 interviews had 30 min of behavioral questions and then 30 minutes of either leetcode problems or system design. For this role was 3 interviews with leetcode problems and 1 of system design.
Once you finish all this process all you get is silence. Weeks go on and zero answer even if you contact the recruiters directly. I understand that I did not get the job, but after having dedicated so much time and effort, having interviews at 7 PM on a Friday to accommodate for US time zone, the least they could do is to let you know the outcome.
I read about this behavior on other glassdoor comments and I could not believe it until I experimented myself. It seems like, you either get an offer or you get silence. I think they should review this approach as it as it feels disrespectful to candidates investing so much in the process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Give an example of a very challenging project you did in the past, or confrontational situation with coworkers and how you handle that.