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      Software Development Engineer Interview

      20 Jan 2012
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Redmond, WA
      No offer
      Neutral experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Dec 2011

      Interview

      I dropped my resume at the Microsoft booth at a career fair. I got an email that had me indicate what timeslots they listed were possible for me, for a phone interview. I also filled out a form to show what position, what development layer, etc I was interested in working in most. I provided my number and my skype name, and said that skype was the most convenient for me. On time, a woman called me on skype (no video) and the interview went right along. She seemed very good at interviewing. It felt very comfortable talking to her, and she made you feel justified in your thinking, and prompted you if you ran out of ideas. The "fun questions" as she called it seemed like brainstorming ideas, anything and everything you think of, you should mention. Get the corner cases, remember safety checks. I got an email 30 minutes after the phone interview ended saying I didn't make the cut. It said I was close, and offered to consider me for a support position, or interview for the developer position again in 2 months. In total, I communicated with 3 different women--the one that scheduled the interview, the interviewer, and the one that followed up on the interview. I asked for feedback/advice from the last woman in my thank-you reply, but she was somewhat dismissive. Otherwise, the vibe I got was okay. Everyone was courteous.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Given a ballpoint pen, how would you test its functionality?
      1 Answer
      1

      Other Software Development Engineer interview reviews for Microsoft

      Software Development Engineer I Interview

      22 July 2025
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Microsoft

      Interview

      It started with a 90-minute online assessment, followed by a technical phone screen with one engineer. The OA covered two medium-to-hard algorithm problems. For coding practice, I mainly rely on "LeetCode" to cover different topics. For company-specific interview preparation, I use "Hack2Hire", "LeetCode Discuss", and "1Point3Acres" to find any recent original questions. All of them are helpful platforms. The phone screen included one coding problem and some discussion around edge cases and time complexity.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Given a list of meeting time intervals, determine if a person could attend all meetings.
      1 Answer

      Software Development Engineer Interview

      20 June 2025
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Microsoft in Dec 2024

      Interview

      I was invited to a technical interview with Microsoft. The interviewer started with a general question: “What happens when you type google.com into your browser?” They asked a few follow-up questions related to that. After that, they gave me a LeetCode algorithmic question, which was at a hard level. The problem was “Integer to English Words.”

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      1. What happens when you type google.com into your browser? 2. “Integer to English Words” – LeetCode algorithmic question
      Answer question

      Software Development Engineer Interview

      28 Feb 2024
      Anonymous employee
      Shanghai, Shanghai
      Accepted offer
      Positive experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Microsoft (Shanghai, Shanghai)

      Interview

      Three tech interviews + one hiring manager VO, most of questions are medium to hard leetcode questions. Ask some questions about techniques you written on the resume. But I think they care more about the match of the research and the job.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Tell me about the recommendation System you made for the work.
      Answer question
      1