Skip to contentSkip to footer
  • Community
  • Jobs
  • Companies
  • Salaries
  • For employers
      Notifications

      Loading...

      Elevate your career

      Discover your earning potential, land dream jobs, and share work-life insights anonymously.

      employer cover photo
      employer logo
      employer logo

      Microsoft

      Engaged employer

      About
      Reviews
      Pay and benefits
      Jobs
      Interviews
      Interviews
      Related searches: Microsoft reviews | Microsoft jobs | Microsoft salaries | Microsoft benefits | Microsoft conversations
      Microsoft interviewsMicrosoft Senior Software Engineer interviewsMicrosoft interview


      Glassdoor

      • About / Press
      • Awards
      • Blog
      • Research
      • Contact Us
      • Guides

      Employers

      • Free Employer Account
      • Employer Centre
      • Employers Blog

      Information

      • Help
      • Guidelines
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy and Ad Choices
      • Do Not Sell Or Share My Information
      • Cookie Consent Tool
      • Security

      Work With Us

      • Advertisers
      • Careers
      Download the App

      • Browse by:
      • Companies
      • Jobs
      • Locations
      • Communities
      • Recent posts

      Copyright © 2008-2026. Glassdoor LLC. "Glassdoor," "Worklife Pro," "Bowls" and logo are proprietary trademarks of Glassdoor LLC.

      Company Bowl sample

      Want the inside scoop on your own company?

      Check out your Company Bowl for anonymous work chats.

      Bowls

      Get actionable career advice tailored to you by joining more bowls.

      Followed companies

      Stay ahead in opportunities and insider tips by following your dream companies.

      Job searches

      Get personalised job recommendations and updates by starting your searches.

      Senior Software Engineer Interview

      3 Apr 2017
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Seattle, WA
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Mar 2017

      Interview

      I was contacted by the Hiring manager after seeing my resume that was submitted fora different opening. Had a phone screen with a principal engineer in the same project. No coding questions were asked but had a great conversation on network management, latency and my work in general. Was scheduled for an onsite interview after 2 weeks. Had a short phone call with the recruiter the day before the interview on what to expect during the day. I was told that 3 rounds of 1:1 interviews were scheduled with a potential for that to be extended to two more rounds. Was specifically told that more than 3 interviews is considered a good sign. The recruiter also promised to get back within 48 hours with the result. First round of interviews was with a principal engineer. He let me use his development system to code. Along with the main coding question, was given two additional code snippets to find bugs/issues. All three problems were not overly had but had plenty of areas which lead to software design discussions. The next was a lunch interview with was very pleasant. Had an opportunity to talk about both work and life in Seattle. The last 30 mins were dedicated to a system design/requirements gathering question and was also asked to pseudo code the algorithm at the end. Third round was with the hiring manager. Was asked to go deep into a mutual exclusion problem that i had coded around 5 years ago. I had forgotten a lot of finer details of it and was finding it hard to recollect. He let that pass and asked me a coding question that i was able to code. The 4th round was with one of his peers. The hour was mostly spend on OS fundamentals with a coding problem at the end. Had a good experience overall and i was happy with my performance. Waited 3 days for the recruiter to let me know the result but all i got was radio silence. Had to convince myself that i didn't make it after waiting for a week. I guess their hiring standards are really high. One advice for other folks is to brush up on their past work to as much detail as possible. I felt i had missed out on the interview with the Hiring manager where i couldn't go deep into my past work. Another helpful tip is to ask as many clarifying questions as possible to their coding problems. Every one in the interview including the Hiring manager are able to device a problem on the spot and leave the details to us. It really helps to nail down the details before staring to code. Also beware that they can stop you at any time and pose a specific assumption for the problem that makes you change your approach and re-think all over again.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Cant share questions Signed NDA.
      Answer question
      2

      Other Senior Software Engineer interview reviews for Microsoft

      Senior Software Engineer Interview

      30 May 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      San Jose, CA
      No offer
      Neutral experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Microsoft (San Jose, CA)

      Interview

      Started with a recruiter phone call and a 30 minute phone call with the hiring manager to negotiate a remote role since the job was based in Seattle and the manager agreed. Following up with five rounds of virtual on site. Four of them are coding/design. One of them is behavioral mostly leetcode medium level questions which I finished and I was able to do all the follow up and answer the design and time complexity questions correctly after the interview got ghosted for a whole month and got an automatic rejection email.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Leet code medium level questions. DFS, BFS, sliding windows and greedy algorithm. Follow up, asking some design questions and the time complexity of the code.
      Answer question

      Sr. Software Engineer Interview

      16 Apr 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Los Angeles, CA
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Microsoft (Los Angeles, CA)

      Interview

      Round - Screening with hiring manager. Discussed about projects and 1 DSA (Med] Loop Rounds: Round 1 - DSA (Med) + projects discussion Round 2 - DSA (Hard) + Behavioral Round 3 - LLD + Behavioral Round 4 - LLD + Behavioral

      Software Engineer Senior Interview

      8 Apr 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      McLean, VA
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Microsoft (McLean, VA)

      Interview

      Phone interview with hiring manager for 45 minutes primarily a tech interview. Focused on questions directly related to tech stack. Come prepared knowing design questions and how those conversations go.

      Top companies for "Compensation and Benefits" near you

      avatar
      Moody's
      3.7★Compensation and benefits
      avatar
      Clockwork Fox Studios
      4.0★Compensation and benefits