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%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
There were 4 interviews. All of them were technical. They hardly asked me about my previous experience. All the questions were around algorithms and data structures and mathematics. There were total 4-5 algorithms that I had to write on paper.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
There were questions related to recurrence relation and game theory.
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Microsoft in Oct 2014
Interview
I handed my resume to an on-campus recruiter. A few days later, I got an email asking me to sign up for an interview slot on campus. I had an interview a few weeks later with a PM from the Mountain View campus. She recommended me for a SDE internship, and about 2 weeks after that interview I was notified that I would be flown to Redmond for final rounds. They changed the location to Mountain View, CA a few weeks later. I flew over, stayed over two nights, and on the second day, had my interview. There were four rounds, based in C++ (my most familiar language was Java). The last round was with a high-up manager who talked about Microsoft's goals and future direction. I heard less than 24 hours after my last interview through email that I got a position as a summer intern. Whole process was ~2 months because of my busy finals period and trying to schedule a time to fly over to California.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions were based on bit manipulation and more low-level computation/ theory, which I was not expecting. I studied more for data structures, recursion, and OOP questions.
I applied through college or university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
I summited my resume when they came to my university. It takes only `1 week to get the interview. But I have not prepare for anything that time. The question was difficult than those online. I did not perform well. The interviewer seems not help with clarify the question. I need to find the specific functions. If the communication is well, that will be helpful.