Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Microsoft with 2.9 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 56% positive. To compare, the company-average is 71.6% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 14 days to get hired, when considering 9 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Microsoft overall takes an average of 46 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Microsoft as a Software Engineer according to 9 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 25%
Skills test: 25%
Phone interview: 13%
Personality test: 13%
Presentation: 13%
Background check: 13%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through a staffing agency. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
Got an interview through a headhunter for a contract interview. They were pretty quick to respond, and overall the experience was good. I didn't get position, and I think my lack of experience had something to do with it. They wanted 3+ years of experience, and I don't quite have that.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a grid of letters, find every possible combination of letters and pass it to a given function that checks to see if it is a real word. You cannot repeat letters, and the letters in the word must be adjacent to each other (i.e. if you start at row 1, column 1, the only letters that can be next are (1,2), (2,1), and (2,2)).
I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft (Melbourne)
Interview
After submitting an online application, I received a HackerRank assessment after passing the resume screening stage, then I was rejected after completing the assessment and did not proceed to further interview rounds.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The assessment consisted of two LeetCode-medium-level coding questions to be completed within 75 minutes.
45 mins technical interview with a member of their San fran team. Very relaxed and informal but questions were focused and lots of follow ups. Easy to schedule as was over video conferencing platform
Straightforward technical loop overall, with strong interviewers at every stage. I genuinely enjoyed the in-depth conversations around technical challenges and algorithmic problem-solving — the entire process felt well-structured and genuinely engaging.