Developer 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.
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through college or university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Jun 2010
Interview
Phone interview took just 15 minutes. There were general questions: what is context, context switching, critical section, threads, some questions about sorting algos, binary search trees. Some programming questions: what is difference between int and Integer (for java), what is difference between String and StringBuffer.
I think I was kinda stupid person :) because there was no logical question.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Vancouver, BC) in Sep 2008
Interview
Was contacted by recruiter who found my resume online. She suggested two positions in kernel team and search team. After I agreed phone interview was scheduled. It took about 30-40 minutes. Recruiter was very positive. Nothing really difficult. Experience question. Generic C knowledge, a couple (or one) brainteasers. One of the questions was which MS products did I use and how I would improve them. I didn't use any extensively so I mumbled something about plugins and that's it. Got polite "do not fit" email next day.
The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Feb 2010
Interview
Everything went smoothly in terms of planing. Very good communication between the recruiter once the initial screen process has started. Great accommodations and all expenses paid. Went through a campus interview, phone interview and on site interview. All interviews were very much the same, 5 minutes of personal background and 30-55 minutes of skill test. The interviewers were very polite and asked questions of different difficulty, each in their own sphere.