Microsoft Software Development Engineer interview questions
based on 1.2K ratings - Updated Jul 22, 2025
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Software Development 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 100% positive. To compare, the company-average is 71.3% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Development Engineer roles take an average of 1 day to get hired, when considering 1 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 Development Engineer according to 1 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 100%
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I applied through college or university. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
Applied through career fair event. Got an email a few weeks later about having a college campus interview. The interview took about 45 minutes, mainly just coding on the whiteboard. The interviewer told me that I would learn about the results in about 1 week. However, it took a bit more than a month for them to get back to me. Was told that they weren't interested in moving forward.
I applied through college or university. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
The process started at my university career fair where I gave out a resume. They gave me a t-shirt
They got in touch a week later to schedule an on-campus interview at the university career services building. The interviewer asked one general thinking question (not coding) and one coding question. They also asked about my resume and research.
Three or four weeks later I was contacted by an interview scheduler to setup an interview in Redmond. Due to the holiday season, I wasn't able to schedule the interview until a month later in January. The scheduler was not my recruiter and just was setting up the travel and timing. They flew me up and back and put me up in a hotel for 2 nights / 3 days.
On their campus I first met with my recruiter in their recruiting building number 111. They informed me of which team I was interviewing with and stated that I should expect 4-5 hour long interviews (with one extended to 90 minutes to include lunch). In the recruiting building, while waiting to meet with a recruiter, you can play Xbox games, try out Windows Mobile products, and speak with a concierge who can help with sightseeing in Seattle or nightlight or transportation.
The interviews were each with someone from a different sub-team inside the group I interviewed with. Each person had me do a coding question, and some also asked algorithmic or conceptual questions (which didn't require explicit coding). Everything was on the whiteboard. I had 5 total interviews, and had time in 4 of them to ask questions of the interviewer about their team.
After the interviews I met with the recruiter again, and explained that I had immediate deadlines. They agreed to get in contact with the team and get back to me while I hung out in the lobby and relaxed. They came back and informed me that the team was very interested and would be making an offer.
The offer arrived the next day, with fairly standard compensation and bonus/stock. I ended up declining the offer.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Describe how you would count the words in this newspaper [pointed to a physical newspaper]?
I applied through college or university. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
It was a full-day process, I had one person responsible for me whom I'd meet in the morning, at lunch and for the final questions at the end of the day. The rest of the day was spent going from office to office, interviewing with (mostly) developers and project managers, spending an hour with each. The questions were predominantly technical, ranging from puzzlers to pieces of code the interviewer was currently working on.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Domain-specific technical question (which I had no background in) - had to improvise on the spot, and took a number of wrong turns. It was difficult in that it knocked my confidence down for the next couple questions.